Pitchfork

Jeez, call PAS/CAL a summery indie pop group one time, and frontman Casimer Pascal goes braying to the alt-weeklies how you're a "fucking idiot." Sure, we've all poked plenty of forks in toasters, but in this case the facts have a definite anti-me bias: Pascal, with drummer LTD, has played in an Amon Düül II-influenced space-rock band. Dear Sir, the last in PAS/CAL's current EP trilogy, shares its title with bar-living indie-rock queen Cat Power's 1995 debut. The new record's cover, designed by Asobi Seksu art-doer Sean McCabe, harkens back to a 1974 release by Apple softies Badfinger.

Hmm, last one's pretty indie pop. Either way, Dear Sir sees PAS/CAL carrying their elaborate auteur-pop still further outside the reverently unfancy Voxtrot or Math & Physics Club library. In an era where Ford's CEO meets with Toyota's chairman to seek advice, this Motor City septet craft songs with, ahem, classic design and postmodern sheen-- like 00s pop/rock misfit Bleu if he'd fixated more on "Walk Away Renee" and Tago Mago than Glass Houses. With inventively multi-layered songwriting, toothpaste-ad sparkly harmonies, and nifty arrangements to rival Jellyfish or Jon Brion, Dear Sir raises the stakes for PAS/CAL's long-awaited full-length debut, out later this year.

Despite their quest for grandma-pleasing pop, PAS/CAL don't shy away from artiness. On "C.A.U. (Sans Muscle)", the eponymous Pascal's impossible, Timberlake-must-be-envious falsetto peals the story of a serious-faced woman in military garb, as brisk acoustic guitar, choir-room piano, and a few shouting children go merrily round a Village Green. The title track, a Krautrock jam with madly panning da-da backing vocals, is merely the most outlandish song in a catalog that also includes schizophrenic sock hop slow dance "What Do the American Girls Have on Jennifer Jo Jo?" (from 2004's Oh Honey, We're Ridiculous EP). Even when superfluous, the courage to experiment helps keep PAS/CAL's studied retroisms from sounding rote.

Not to say the band can't also pen ditties that should rub their hometown's obsolescent garage-bozo rep off the map (is this where I rip on that ass booger Jack White?). Fuzzed-organ headbopper "Little Red Radio" slips in a local DJ reference and was apparently inspired by Stereolab, but it's the only Christmas list you'll still want to hear in, well, yeah, the summer. "Wake Up Wake Up Wake Up" was commissioned for a Matthew McConaughey flick, a surprise because this multipart-vocal call to action sounds like a box office winner. Female singer Bem takes a droll lead turn on "The Lot We Came Home With"-- Glasgow's Camera Obscura through a kaleidoscope. Aw snap, a sticker blurb: Dear Sir is cake to enter, yet labyrinthine enough to explore on repeat. Hey, I am a fucking idiot.