Linus Pauling Quartet/ST37, “Monster”/”Lactating Purple”

Hard though it might be to imagine, the new split-7″ release by Houston stoner-sludge-rock dudes the Linus Pauling Quartet and Austinite psych-rock heroes ST37 kind of took me by surprise, in good ways and bad. First off, the Quartet’s track, “Monster,” eschews the band’s trademark thundering guitar attack (at least at first) in favor of a hypnotic, raga-sounding drone that brings to mind the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” of all things; definitely not what I was expecting, given the band’s general leanings.

The sitar-esque guitars, the repetitive riffs, the flat, Donovan-sounding vocals — put it all together, and you could be forgiven for thinking you’d slapped on the wrong damn record. But hey, they make it work surprisingly well, and once you get past the drone you start to see where the Quartet’s really heading. Things snap somewhat more into focus with the chorus, when the band shifts from sundrenched ’60s-isms into snarling, threatening garage-psych, warning that there’s something really fucking dangerous lurking beneath the smiling facade.

The band even jumps into a bit of propulsive, Poster Children-ish indie-rock near the end, but it’s that chorus that really seals the deal. After one measly listen, I caught myself muttering the lyrics under my breath while waiting in the lunch line. The track comes off like Nick Cave doing some kind of half-sarcastic take on raw garage rock, and it’s frighteningly addictive.

On the flipside, ST37 reimagines Helios Creed’s “Lactating Purple,” pounding out a pile of messy, overfuzzed, spacey rawk that while it’s a cool idea and all, sadly, just doesn’t do all that much for me. The track starts promisingly enough, with chugging guitars, a crapload of distortion, and a decent groove, but things go wrong fairly quickly. The layers of guitars get muddier and muddier, to the point where the structure of the song itself starts to fall apart.

I’m sure that works for some people, but I’m honestly a “song” guy at my core — to me, there has to be some kind of underpinning structure, or it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. (I can’t stand jam bands, seriously.) And sure enough, about halfway through “Lactating Purple” slows down and starts to trudge along, plodding its way through a break that adds an even thicker layer of psychedelic grunginess. Admittedly, I’m not real familiar with the original track, so Helios Creed fans out there, your mileage may vary. For me, though, I’ll stick to side A.