What makes a good band name? It all depends on who you ask. But as far as I'm concerned, there seem to be four categories of band names that can make a group significantly more likable. And here they are:

Category #1: Band names that are simply cool-sounding. Examples: Q & Not U, Les Savy Fav, Aphex Twin.

Category #2: Bands names that alter seemingly innocuous phrases, names, or objects. Examples: The Texas Instruments, John Cougar Concentration Camp.

Category #3: Bands whose titles are stunningly evocative of their music. Examples: Low, Summer Hymns, Flying Saucer Attack.

Category #4: Bands that invert the technique used by those who fall into the third category, choosing a name that seems so opposed to the nature their music that it drips with delicious irony. Examples: The Pixies, Cap'n Jazz, Massive Attack.

Elf Power should have thought twice before deciding on what to call themselves. Three times, even. Judging from the band's name, and an analysis of the above categories, one could most likely expect from Elf Power either cloying twee-pop, or sloppy, angry punk rock. The Winter is Coming is neither. It's a fairly well-executed, if painfully uneven, romp through that ubiquitous Elephant 6 fuzz-pop sound we all know and love.

On second thought, scratch the "love" part. Everyday, the "trademark" Elephant 6 sound loses another fan, and rightfully so. Most of the great Elephant 6 records on record store shelves-- most notably Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and the Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage-- were not fuzzy, lo-fi pop records, but rather, unique, cohesive albums that operated outside of the defined "Elephant 6" sound. The one real exception to this rule is the Olivias' Dusk at Cubist Castle, the epitome of the E6 sound, and arguably the best album bearing the collective's seal of approval.

The Winter is Coming kicks off with an ambiguous drone and a driving marching band rhythm. A reverb-drenched guitar, mimicked by Andrew Rieger's dreamy vocals, play a riff lifted off Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun." Eventually, the track builds to a powerful climax of horns, guitars, and strings. It's followed by "Skeleton," perhaps the archetypal Elephant 6 fuzzy pop song, with somewhere between three and six chords, a straightforward beat, and lo-to-mid-fi production value.

So up until the third track, it's all good. Sure, it's not ground-breaking by any stretch of the imagination, but the level of rock power applied to the first two tracks give Elf Power an edge other Elephant 6 songs generally lack. Unfortunately, "The Great Society" plays off that old standby of E6 production: the Phil Spector wall of sound. And in doing so, it disrupts the record's flow with a blast of cheeseball fluff. The record does recover relatively well from this lapse in judgment, though, with the trance-inducing "Wings of Light" and the "Don't Fear the Reaper"-esque "The Sun is Forever." Here, the album takes on glossier production, but thanks to the nature of Rieger's songwriting, it remains true to the rest of the album's sound.

So, yeah, The Winter is Coming is relatively consistent. The closer, "The Albatross," is a powerful rock ballad that serves as a convincing ending to a record that may leave you needing a bit of convincing. Though it's certainly not a bad album, one can't help but feel that parts of it are a bit too predictable, borrowing excessively not only from outside sources, but from other songs on the record as well. So perhaps it's not the band, but the album in question that lays claim to the ironic title: The Winter is Coming is the most promising Elf Power release to date.

-Matt LeMay