(BNS)

Bouncer/vocalist/film director Cory McAbee has been kicking around the biz for twenty years; short twisted films such as The Ketchup and Mustard Man and an Eraserhead-like feature, The American Astronaut. Along with sound-tracking those flicks, McAbee, an absurd consciousness-streaming lyricist (think Stan Ridgway) and a pointy voiced singer formed a band The Billy Nayer Show.

BNS albums like The Villain that Love Built and Rabbit leapt from Angelo Badalamenti-like grandeur to cowpunked odd pop, with McAbee doubling on ukulele and autoharp. Ok, that description sounds like Wall of Voodoo with a smoother crooner, right? Still that doesn't prepare for the dramatic, silly and slippery BNSpTBNS. While its arrangements go from moody hillbilly ballads (Riding Horses"), Waits-ian ping-pong-skronk ("Henry Joe"), quietly slithering funk ("Reno") and autoharp-driven lullaby chamber pop with yawning country twitches ("Wrong Highway"), McAbee's lyrics dip into callous character studies, showy mantras and weirdly wired romantic allegory. "I will give her a piece of coal for a heart," whispers a double-tracked McAbee through the psychedelic twinkler "Snow Girl," before going into a full-bore clarion-clear howl about an imaginary girl built of snow and dirt and clay.

While all of this should seemingly make for a difficult listening hour, BNSpTBHS is cool, clear and filled with epic melodies, small and immense, each of which is more contagious than the song before it. Listen to it once and you'll listen to it six times in a row. I did.

DOWNLOAD: "Reno" "Wrong Highway" "Who Do You Sue?" A.D. AMOROSI