

The opening “Delicate Creatures” from Tim Cohen’s Bad Blood plays somewhat like the psychedelic haunted-house music of indie rock contemporaries The Gris Gris, but with sunny melodies and closer attention to the lo-fi bedroom production. Here the prolific frontman for San Francisco’s darling garage rockers The Fresh & Onlys delivers similarly catchy tunes, basted in rich old guitar tones and heavily reverberated leads. Spooky male/female vocal harmonies help make Cohen’s heady and inward lyrics a bit more mysterious. The infectious “Pyramid Scheme” rubs troubled ponderings related to industrial mechanics against flowery '60s go-go pop, while the title track deploys more haunting harmonies into an ocean of reverb where only spare keyboard notes can tread above so much wetness. “Purpose in Life” is the only tune that doesn’t contrast sing-along melodies with troubled lyrics. The pulsing low-rung drones and synthy strings ringing in minor chords make for a welcome dirge before “I and I Will Be” drives bubbly indie pop into more brooding, esoteric self-analysis. “Doctor Doctor” closes, with bluesy fretboard runs and eerie one-string trills.