“Away/Towards,” the epic, nearly nine-minute long opener on Pearl Mystic, slinks slowly at the beginning, quickly making it clear that it’s leading you to something very big. The psychedelic haze of the head-nodder it turns into doesn’t disappoint, swirling through the celebrated loud/quiet/loud dynamic with thick guitars and solid bass lines punctuated by “whisper-to-a-scream” vocals. The six-string bombast continues with “Form and Function,” a slower, druggy, swagger-filled tune that sounds like it could’ve been a Brian Jonestown Massacre song, if they still wrote good songs (karma’s a bitch, eh?). There are some interludes to provide a droning relaxation between all the main tracks, and after the first one, the band slows it down for “In Our Time,” which drags along a little bit like background music at a party where you accidentally chugged a bunch of that cough syrup you can’t get in Canada. “Since We Had Changed” is just as slow-moving, but it’s powered by a groovy, repetitive bass line and guitar drones that sound like sunlight, and is probably something people would love to listen to while they’re high, but high in a “man, everything’s gonna be okay” way. The last time the album gets a real dose of adrenaline is “Preservation,” drenched in glorious distortion freak-outs and enough echo on the wailing vocals that it sounds like they were recorded at the bottom of a canyon. I once read something that said this band doesn’t do any drugs, which is hard to believe. That’s how much it sounds like drugs. If you walked into a room in slow motion, lookin’ real cool with your sunglasses on, and immediately started sweaty-dancing to a light show surrounded by a bunch of good looking people, one of these songs might be playing. (Weird World Record Co., hookworms.bandcamp.com) Matt Williams