Lake Worth quartet Luna Rex tears a page from Frank Zappa's spoof-rock manual on its highly satirical and conceptually humorous debut EP, Glass Wave. With the record's tales of rip-roaring road trips in a VW van, interstellar time machine romances, and odes to "happy little trees" painter Bob Ross, virtually nothing is taboo for the eccentric foursome. No genre is off limits either within the band's power-pop mélange distributing prog, glam, jam, and punk rock evenly.
In similar fashion to Zappa's maniacal whirl, Luna Rex backs its hare-brained themes up here with sound musicianship. Frontman Jon Glassman's vocals vary from singsong-y to hefty Roger Daltrey hooks. Paul Axelband's blues-inflected guitar work delivers self-described "goose-fucking-bump-worthy" solos. Bassist Heath Silvern boogies like late '70s Grateful Dead records, and chick drummer Angel Watson keeps everyone in check.
Named after a ghost who purportedly inhabits its practice space — as explained on "Majic Table & the Story of the Luna Ghost" — Luna Rex releases this sporadically lunar collection of songs on Friday with a celestial shindig at Propaganda.