On a recent weekday evening in New York, four half-naked, shallow-chested kids climbed up on a Mercury Lounge stage. With their tattoos and long, feminine hair, they looked the sort that can depend on constant harassment at gas stations and fast-food restaurants across the county. In the crowd was a precise mix of metal fans with sleeveless shirts and unwashed frizzy hair, trim hipster girls in slim jeans and tight jackets, and generic New York show people. I was there for enlightenment. Having been sent Danava's self-titled debut record months ago, I still didn't know what to make of it: Seeing them live was meant to solve my problem. But they were just as inscrutable when they walked off as when they had walked on.

In part, this seems to be by design. Improbably named vocalist and guitarist Dusty Sparkles says, about his band, "It's all about us." During their set, he spoke only a handful of words, and his mates looked down as they cranked out the long-running guitar progressions and proggy bass juggling that make up the bulk of their eight minute-plus songs. By the end, my only novel speculation was that the quartet maybe was, in fact, from outer space, a presumption based solely on its hairlessness (besides the girly locks, of course) and seemingly complete indifference to the audience which had showed up to see them play.

On Danava's (say, as they do, 'don-uh-vuh') breakthrough appearance on Kemado's Invaders record, their self-contained oddness served as a welcome alternative to the more straightforward metal that made up the bulk of the comp. This reviewer wrote then in praise of their "techy, almost no-wave take on metal, constantly twitching and sniffing and scratching over shifty bass and 'Osbournes' Ozzy vocals." That track, "By The Mark", leads off the album as well, in extended form. It sounds just as great: Dazed and confused, howling slow-riding riffs, Sparkles' mock operetta vocals lazily cresting above the fray, each idea stretched to its almost-nonsensical end.

So what makes you happy? Danava is the most take-it-or-leave-it record I've heard this year: songs proceed on formula, warming up with guitar and keyboard feedback ("Eyes in Disguise", "Quiet Babies Astray in a Manger"), maturing into laser-sharp space rock that runs less on riffs than on flat out, indulgent but astute soloing, a brief vocal passage, rinse and repeat. I'd put it on while washing my car, if I had one.

They're the sole working owners of this sound, an almost glam-rock, Hawkwind thing. Not having been alive in the 70s, it's what I imagine the decade sounded like: Everybody taking their time, working out their riffs gradually, cause there's nothing else to do. In 2006, many with whom I've spoken don't feel like they have the time they need to figure this band out. Fair enough: the last minute of ten or twelve is always, on this record, their best. That's counterintuitive, maybe hostile, maybe rewarding. Time will tell if you've got it.