Great albums by The Black Angels and Black Mountain have harbored the resurgence of psychedelic drone rock and the current psychedelic folk revival has catapulted Devendra Banhart and Fleet Foxes to stardom - somewhere in the middle lies the sound of local six-piece Magic Castles debut. The record’s been catching fire around town, with airplay on Radio K and local press love, in part because the band's psych-lust falls just outside the bounds of what most ‘60s resuscitators are embracing. A rock band with hazy wailing guitars that still sounds more reserved than paranoid, Magic Castles may just usher in a third wave of modern psychedelia in indie music.

Lyrically concerned with trolls, golden birds, and other creatures conjured from the lands of the mushroomed mind, Magic Castles attempt their free love revolution using basic tools. From the album’s analog four-track recording audio quality, to its liberal application of reverb on just about every instrument, Mysticore literally sounds like an unearthed gem from decades past (as opposed to a Sub Pop budgeted group with a high-profile producer and enough cash to properly groom their requisite mustaches). The do-what-we-want component to Magic Castles sound is most apparent in their epic song lengths, “Cave Troll Blues” ambles along spaced out on fumes for much of its thirteen minutes.

This sort of carefree attitude is always a double-edged sword. Sometimes sharp hooks and memorable melodies manage to shine through Mysticore’s reverb addicted haze (the lick on “Autumn Sun” is to die for), but elsewhere the reverb proves overwhelming and drowns the overall sound. A few songs (“All My Prayers...,” “Imaginary Friends”) glide along on pleasantness rather than going for any kind of punch, causing yearning for the next song to begin. Good thing the quality of epic yarns like “The Ballad of the Golden Bird” and the creepy “Death Dreams” cancel out the humdrum moments enough to call Mysticore a knockout success for both the local scene and the psych genre.

At their worst, Magic Castles come across as a band just wanting to perform their own versions of songs from their beloved vinyl collection. Strangely enough, this may also be their greatest asset. While the sextet’s methods don’t push any envelope they do work. They're doing something similar to many of the indie crowd's modern favorites, but very smoothly swerve around sounding redundant. If the band had tried to sound a bit cleaner or added unnecessary electronics to modernize their sound, it would feel all wrong. No, the route they've chosen is most certainly the right one. You can easily visualize the half-smiles on their faces as they mumble a vocal line atop a warm keyboard riff, as if they're just playing music to get lost in it, and really, isn't that everyone's primary goal when we drop that needle or press the digital play button?