It doesn't take much time with Psychogeography to figure out that it's clearly a Work of Art. Song titles in German, references to European history, sleazily distorted electric guitar, experiments with noise-- stick the thing in a black turtleneck, and you've got the hippest record of the year.

Of course, capital-A art has always made an uneasy bedfellow for capital-P pop music. If the bane of really great rock music is pretentiousness, and pretentiousness is Art's best friend, then how are the two things ever going to get along well at all? Psychogeography's tension does, from time to time, produce fascinating masterworks. But, more often, it sounds like what it is: a bunch of people too hip to kick out the jams but unwilling to put in the effort to make something legitimately challenging.

Though Poem Rocket don't entirely escape rock's trappings, they don't make the album equivalent of Ph.D theses, either. Instead, they manage to split the difference between visceral pleasure and analytical enjoyment, letting the two things grow around one another organically. And surprise of all surprises, they've even got a pretty good sense of humor.

Consider, for example, "Crappy Payphone Song," a bizarrely literal little folk ballad, in which singer Sandra Gardner mournfully intones the set of numbers one should call if they're ever forced to use-- you guessed it-- a crappy pay phone. Smack in the middle of so much post-Sonic Youth feedback and deliberately paced experimentation, the song is a funny little breather. Though it certainly fits into the album's theme of urban living, it's a quirky moment, full of the pleasure that music of this variety usually forgoes.

At the same time, Poem Rocket very much want to be taken seriously. They borrow from all over the art-rock map. From the Youthiness of their guitar playing to their occasional instrumental wig-outs, the Rockets resolutely stick to their intellectual guns, preferring to explore the unusual rather than exploit the expected. Like all albums of this variety, Psychogeography doesn't have the best hit-and-miss ratio in the world, but even its unusually misguided moments have their charms. The simple fact that not every album you own sounds exactly like this is enough to make it worth checking out.

And when Poem Rocket hit, they hit big. "Hip Emergency" attaches a breakbeaty rhythm to an impression of Mark E. Smith as an advertising pitchman. "Explosion Ex Cathedra (Cimabue)" is, despite its crushingly arty title, a nicely ominous little wonder. Throughout, the band's fusion of terse, No Wave ranting and freeform noise makes Psychogeography an intense trip through gritty territory, just as any album about living in an urban environment should.

In the end, Poem Rocket succeed for rather surprising reasons. Though their project reeks of earnest artistic seeking and a genuine aspiration to artistic merit, the album never becomes dry or esoteric. Powered by their honest appreciation for their influences and their genuine wish to communicate what they enjoy, the band come off sounding surprisingly unpretentious. They may never manage to achieve Art, but they've created a work of the small-a variety, which, as any rock fan knows, is where the real fun is, anyway.

-Sam Eccleston