Like most of Scott Miller's ideas, dubbing this group the Loud Family is at once ingenious and obscure. On the one hand, it's a hip allusion to the mid-Seventies PBS series An American Family; on the other, it's a clever way to describe the sound and feel of the band. Either way, it's a great hook – smart, funny and instantly memorable. All of which, appropriately enough, are qualities shared by Miller's songs.

So why haven't you heard of this guy? Partly because Miller's previous band, Game Theory, never garnered more than a cult following through its six-album run (even so, those who caught on will swear that its Lolita Nation was an overlooked masterpiece). But mostly it's because his songs, though insinuatingly tuneful, can be maddeningly oblique, fleshing out each verse with abstruse references to long-forgotten pop songs and TV shows; at times, the results sound like Thomas Pynchon writing for Big Star.

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things is no less obsessed with arcana – how many song quotes can you uncover in "He Do the Police in Different Voices"? This time around, though, Miller puts his emphasis not on the words but on the melodies, and that pays off big time with songs like "Sword Swallower," the power-poppy "Isaac's Law" and the driving, guitar-crazed "Jimmy Still Comes Around." And although it still takes some effort to figure out just what Miller is singing about, the truth is that when his songs boast choruses as catchy as the one in "Take Me Down (Too Halloo)," odds are that you won't really care what the lyrics mean.

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things is available from Alias Records, 2815 West Olive Avenue, Burbank, CA 91505. (RS 656)

J.D. CONSIDINE