The Old Haunts capture the disconnected spirit of post-urban unincorporated sprawl with a mix of cascading guitars, fuzzed out bass and urgent vocals. The Olympia band is often labeled swamp-rock, but I hear something more at home a few miles off I-5 in Nowhere-Northwest. The band navigates through unusual, not-for-radio song structures as guitarist/vocalist Craig Extine looks out at the world from distance, prodding and judging the those around him, hashing out a confused past, dreaming of victories and violence. Yet he’s always a few steps from actually jumping into the fray, and one gets the feeling that, in the endm, the songs themselves are action enough for him.

The song “Wasted Day” falls in the middle of the album and contains the most compelling elements of whole the recording. It starts with Extine’s almost delicate plucked guitar echoing out on its own, with the Scott Seckington’s bass and Curtis James’ drums joining in soon after, determinedly urging the song along. The remainder of the first half of the song explores the fairly philosophical territory of the singer’s desire to live in the world of night and dream, the tension between dream and wakefulness, what matters and what exists – “there is nothing that I could see that I can’t already see in my sleep … the haze is worse than the curse of clarity.” Mid way through the song, the verbal exploration ends and, after a pause, the band starts in on a beautiful instrumental section. It’s as if frustrated with trying to use words to explain himself, Extine lets the instruments do the work. A piano joins in to round out the meditation.

It’s refreshing to hear music that aspires to be important but is so lacking in pretense. While the songs are full of internal ruminations, they are not sentimental or self indulgent. The guitar playing is remarkable – despite being reminiscent of other players and styles (Television meets Link Wray comes to mind), it is truly original. Where the guitar carves out sharp, thin lines, the bass uses a broad messy brush to set down rhythmic frameworks and distorted counter melodies. The drums drive the songs’ dynamics and stick to spare beats.

During my first listen, despite being attracted to the overall sound, I thought the album a bit one-dimensional – the instrumentation, aside from the occasional piano overdub, is consistent, and the palette of guitar, bass and vocal stylings is relatively limited. Song forms are generally all of a piece and there are none of those catchy choruses repeating the song title that make distinguishing songs so easy. The more I listened, the more the individual songs came into focus and the depth of the record became apparent. These are songs to live with for a while, that decide to get to know you as much as you decide to understand them. This recording captures a band exactly as it is hitting its stride – I look forward to seeing them perform these songs, though I have a hunch how it will sound.

The Old Haunts play at the Comet Tavern, Saturday, July 22.