"Crash in we go/ You can face it or erase it." Thus begins the full- length debut of San Francisco's Creeper Lagoon. It's a project as diverse and unpredictable as the metropolis they hail from.

I Become Small and Go was released on NickelBag Records, the label owned by the omnipresent Dust Brothers, who make a couple of guest appearances on the record. While it's easy to blame the aforementioned pair for producing some songs by a certain blond, prepubescent trio (we won't name any names, if it's okay with Hanson), this album regains the Brothers some of the credibility they abandoned with that misstep.

If this 11- track effort yields us any insight into Creeper Lagoon's future, they're a group for whom great things lie ahead. Anchored by Ian Sefchick's Jakob Dylan- esque vocals, "Wonderful Love," is moving without being sappy or cliched, a panorama of lush arrangements that float gently down a stream. "Empty Ships" is a dizzying blur of time changes amidst riffs that cut like sabers. The foursome goes global with "Prison Mix," a tune punctuated by an Indian vocal track and someone who sounds suspiciously like Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute, and Sharky Laguana's muted piano, layered over hip-hop beats, lends the record an elegiac note on "He Made Us All Blind." If you've a yen for clever pop grooves a la Fountains of Wayne, take a dip in Creeper Lagoon.

-Susan Moll