Heaven's probably pretty cool, I'll admit that. But it's difficult to imagine what could possibly make eternity that interesting. Would it be like, say, a continuous orgasm? Because that'd just be messy. Even without the physical side, it'd get boring really fast if it was happening all the time, like most everything else. I guess you'd get to be with God all the time, but that could become pretty tiresome, too. You'd probably have to spend a lot of time doing menial stuff, like combing airplanes out of his beard, or putting souls in babies, stuff like that.

So, it's probably fortunate that the experience of listening to Pleasure Forever doesn't literally correspond to the band's name. Judging from the band's history, they don't put much stock in names to begin with; originally known as the VSS, the San Francisco trio also spent a few years as the Slaves before taking their current designation. Maybe this time, though, the name will stick; though far from idyllic, the gleefully doomy sound of this incarnation's self-titled debut transmits the pleasures of musical excess with more panache and bite than most other would-be epicmakers.

Take the third track, "Meet Me in Eternity." From a hushed opening that pairs piano with droning guitar noise, the band whips itself into a frenzied big-rock stomp whose drunken singalong bits make it sound more like Mudhoney on vaudeville than the deadly serious tour of the underworld suggested by the lyrics. Suddenly, the storm calms, leaving Andrew Rothbard's smirkingly sinister vocals to carry the song until the guitars return in a building staccato thrash that leads right back to the main riff. Rothbard goes out with rapid gusto, screaming, "You took a piece of me/ And I take it back."

It's one thing for a band to wallow in the dregs of post-grunge sleaze and hopelessness, but it's something else entirely when they enjoy it this much. On the opening track, "Goodnight," Rothbard's sly, double-tracked moans crawl through a Doorsy debauched-cabaret atmosphere, complete with sitar-like effects and the occasional shrill party-favor whistle, before the thumping, handclap-heavy chorus enters. We're spared the Lizard King's lyrical pretensions and left with somewhat standard but effectively dark imagery: "I take dead aim in a dead-end town/ Your lips seem to part but I can't hear a sound." Finally, the song breaks down into a menacing sing-song coda, augmented by some well-placed slidework from guitarist Joshua Hughes. "Curtain Call for a Whispering Ghost" makes good on the same type of swagger while Rothbard's piano struts across your skull and tickles at your spine above drummer David Clifford's ramshackle fury.

The guys are also quite capable of toning down the attitude without losing their energy. "Bullets" mines far more desolate but still desperate and driving territory, firing off chilly guitar riffs and organ tones like hot lead from a getaway car. Putting a different spin on excess, "Stay Precious" constructs a windswept landscape from armies of guitar and monumental drum pulses, constantly shifting underfoot and dissolving even faster than it was built.

Of course, sometimes excess is just excess. What starts in "Any Port in a Storm" as an enjoyably loopy jaunt through the treacherous pirate-metaphor seas begins to take on water as it suddenly metamorphoses into baroque chanty, eventually sinking in its nigh-infinitely repeated, hyperdramatic chorus call: "All of the things I've lost in search of gold." Likewise, "Magus Opus" ends up as bloated as it sounds, taking 8½ minutes to crawl through God knows how many movements and Rothbard's fairly feeble attempts to convincingly choke out the line, "You enchant the night," in his million-cigarettes vocals. While they're not completely awful, the fact that these two are the longest songs on the record (and the fact that they seem even longer) makes you suspect that Pleasure Forever hasn't yet learned to manage their excesses.

But who wants a perfect record? Alright, jeez, put your hands down. Rhetorical question. But think: if you were stuck in a room with Loveless, Pet Sounds, or any of their goody-two-shoes, genius-level ilk playing on repeat for eternity, would you feel justly rewarded or forever damned? While Pleasure Forever might not deliver like the classics, it's got a dangerous grin on its hellbound face that dares you to tell it so.

-Brendan Reid