It's an interesting indication of where rock music is now that the five members of the Sand Pebbles - a Melbourne band that plays what it likes without regard to genre, conventional song forms anc contemporary productions conventions - are occasional musicians who hold down "real" day jobs. Perhaps it's because no one's life's dreams are hanging on the band's success that its second album, Ghost Transmissions, sounds so relaxed, self-assured, and, well, different. None of the 11 songs here are likely to win APRA awards or make it on to the Fox FM playlist, but what they lack in hooks they more than make up for with a willingness to follow a sound or a feeling through to its natural conclusion. Although the catch-all rubric "psychedelic" could be applied to the Sand Pebbles, really what they do is serve up a fizzing, imaginative - and heady - musical brew that's written and performed sorely because it sounds good.

- Shaun Carney