The debut release by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Up From Below, has somehow been both the easiest and the most challenging record I have had to digest in recent memory. As a listener, this album is unadulterated joy – the band’s sound is new yet familiar, and the sound changes enough from track to track to keep one’s attention while widening their smile as the record plays on. For a more critical audience, however, one finds a considerably more difficult task. This is neither a band nor an album easy to peg. Up From Below is not perfect pop, like Camera Obscura’s My Maudlin Career, nor is it literate folk, like The Horse’s Ha Of the Cathmawr Yards (to reference a pair of other albums I have loved this year), though it is certainly has both folk and pop emphases. Neither is the record a simple mixture of the two genres.

Perhaps this explains why most reviews of this album dedicate the bulk of the text to describing, and occasionally slyly condemning, the appearance and perceived throwback ethos of the band’s social dynamic, rather than commenting on the music. There may be some good reason for this focus, though, as the band’s back-story and image make for compelling copy. Led by former Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros could, at first glance, be mistaken for a 21st Century return of Ken Kesey and his merry band of Pranksters. (Indeed, the band travels in the equivalent of their own Furthur bus and all.)

Critics in Los Angeles, where Ima Robot found its initial success as a party band and the current home base of the Magnetic Zeros, have noted the significant personal evolution of Ebert as he has transitioned from dance-rocker to long-haired “hippie-ster” – a change that has prompted many to fall back on the usual descriptors, all derivations in some form or another of an indie rock messiah. In many ways, the dismissiveness of the journalistic treatment Ebert as an individual has received reminds me of the skeptical profile portraits painted previously of Tim DeLaughter, when he underwent his own transition from frontman of Tripping Daisy to sonic ringmaster and creative driving force behind The Polyphonic Spree.

The DeLaughter/Spree reference is apt, both individually and collectively, as well as stylistically and substantively. Both DeLaughter and Ebert arrived at their rocker incarnations through trial and tribulation, the former with the death of a bandmate and an emotional collapse, the latter via traditional artist struggles with substance abuse. Both hit bottom, found their inner guide, and returned with more artistic energy than before. Both also emerged with central emphases on community, peace, and love – attributes that seem to receive uniformly derisive treatment from the critical sphere, but for which neither individual has done much to indicate anything other than sincere motives and intentions.

As leaders of their respective troupes, both men have produced diverse, highly stylized, anthemic, multi-media opuses that require the heavy lifting of a large number of fellow travelers. While The Polyphonic Spree has been known to crowd a stage with upwards of thirty band-members, Sharpe keeps things relatively parsimonious, with only ten members comprising the Magnetic Zeros.

Musically, however, the LA band exhibits considerably more diversity than the Dallas-based Spree. Throughout Up From Below, the listener’s memory is continually jarred, as obvious and equally disparate influences suggest themselves. From just one recent casual spin, I counted moments inspired by bands as different as I’m From Barcelona, The Hold Steady, Prince, The B-52s, Neil Young, The Bee Gees, Vampire Weekend, Woody Guthrie, and old June Carter-Johnny Cash duets, with some Jesus Christ Superstar thrown in for good measure. The album’s title track could be heard as straightforward Midwestern country, while “Jade” resembles a Mexican folk anthem.

The top singles of the album are more complicated. “Janglin” provides the I’m From Barcelona hint, all bubblegum with its gentle chorus scatting, while the lead vocals might be what you would hear if Joe Strummer had recorded a soundtrack for his niece’s birthday party. Album opener “40 Day Dream” could be from the production a Beatles-themed musical put on by the attendees of the nation’s most secular Unitarian-Universalist summer church camp.

The most noteworthy track on the album must be “Home,” with its June and Johnny refrains. The sound on the song is far more June Carter, while the underlying dark humor clearly emanates from the Cash side. Cornpone pop throughout, listeners could be forgiven for simply chalking this one up to confection. Certainly, lyrics like “Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my ma and pa, but not the way that I do love you” and “Home is wherever I am with you” are sugary sweet, but the brilliance is found in the spoken-word portion of the song, when Ebert recounts a tale to his excusably forgetful partner, the ever-present Jade Castrinos, of the time she fell out the window and almost bled to death while smoking the cigarette she feared to be her last in the back seat, en route to the hospital.

This interaction was my first hint of the darkness that provides the basement of the Edward Sharpe’s structure. The foreboding becomes more evident, though never dominantly so, on the second half of the album, in tracks like “Desert Song”, “Brother,” and “Black Water.” After successive listens, the conceptual underpinnings of the album become clearer. Or, at least, the fact that there are conceptual underpinnings becomes more evident. To truly understand the central narrative of the album, one must view the corresponding series of short films that accompany the tracks, a twelve-part project that combines relatively excellent filmmaking with an incredibly ambitious vision. So far, the band has released only the first of these videos (“Desert Song”), a harrowing seven minutes of desert isolation and despair, and still shots of the forthcoming second installation, which seems to be, visually at least, a cross between The Passion of the Christ and Midnight Express.

As the video project indicates, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros intend to be around for a while, and as they stay and make their presence known, expect more twists and turns to be unpacked, both in terms of sound and story. For those that shudder and have Operation: Mindcrime flashbacks when the phrase “concept album” is uttered, rest assured – there is plenty of stand-alone beauty and fun in this album. But for those of you intrigued by the idea of a new band to get into that combines all of the above influences and themes, it is time for your eyebrows to rise.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – 40 Day Dream