Young Jesus are an LA-based emo band with a love of intricacy, long-form jams, improvisation, and literature. (I think their singer John Rossiter’s a bookseller by day, but now I have no idea where I heard that.) They take the unadulterated energy of ‘90s indie rock like Built to Spill and Modest Mouse and fuse it with the expressive, practiced freedom of jazz. Playing live is crucial to their sound; they stay loose, sprawl out, react to one another in real time, and keep themselves from smoothing down the wrinkles. A former KZSU GM and a training director saw them play a house show in Boston a couple years ago, and they’ve been raving about it ever since. (This album came out on a small Chicago label before Saddle Creek did the right thing and picked them up.) Favorites: 1, 3, 6, 7 because I’m a sucker for the long ones. No FCCs.

1. *(5:47)—Mid-tempo, straightforward major-key rock. Full, riptide-like guitar. Long, hypnotic outro.
2. (3:09)—Slow, sludgy, pretty, heavy, reminiscent of Bedhead but more ragged.
3. *(6:25)—Loose, soft, improvised-sounding playing. Graceful build to a scrawling guitar solo and a lovely melodic outro.
4. (2:15)—Simple, free and easy, with just acoustic guitar and a single track of vocals.
5. (6:46)—Slow, lush strumming. Gradual crescendo, ornamented with subtle piano and saxophone.
6. *(9:49)—Starts as a simple, subdued plod. Long, intense improvised section with washes of guitar drone, bird sounds, and sampled speech. Swoops into full, explosive rock ’n’ roll before returning to free playing with gorgeous ambient drone laid over continuous drumming. The gentle outro reminds me of Early Day Miners.
7. *(12:42)—Like the last song, begins as lumbering rock before dissolving into free improvisation and then reconstituting itself. Loud, free-swinging, full of energy. At about six minutes it returns to 4/4 rock. Sudden jump in speed, almost krautrock. Fake denouement before the slow, grand finish.