Beyond borders

The six members of Boston's Hallelujah the Hills grew up hearing different voices. Cellist-guitarist David Bentley attended college in Athens, Ga., during the '90s and immersed himself in the city's lo-fi psychedelic-pop scene led by bands such as Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control. The first album bassist Joe Marrett says he "got really excited about" was Public Enemy's landmark rap opus, "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back."

In elementary school, Eric Meyer switched from the clarinet to drums because "they were cooler" and started listening to Rush and Led Zeppelin because his older friends told him to. Elio DeLuca, who plays organ and Moog synthesizer, remembers being impressed by his grandfather's piano playing and his dad's jazz record collection. Trumpeter Brian Rutledge realized there was a place for brass in the rock world, after all, when he joined his first ska band. Singer-guitarist Ryan Walsh, who is also Hallelujah the Hills's principal songwriter, simply says he listened to "everything."

Listening to the band's marvelous debut album, "Collective Psychosis Begone," out now on the California indie label Misra Records, you can't help but believe him. The disc, which has garnered rave reviews since its release earlier this summer, is as bracingly adventurous and exuberant, as crowded with a palpable sense of joy and discovery, as anything you're likely to hear this year. It's the sound of music without limits, made by a band reveling in its own vast creative potential and the cumulative collision of its early influences.

In its short life, the band -- which formed barely two years ago out of the ashes of Walsh and Meyer's previous Boston outfit, Stairs -- has already drawn fairly accurate comparisons to ev eryone from the aforementioned Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes to the Arcade Fire and one of Walsh's favorites, Guided By Voices. (Check out Walsh's cover art collage, which strongly echoes GBV honcho Bob Pollard's cut-and-paste masterpieces.) The band plays T.T. the Bear's tomorrow night.

"When we started getting press, there were bands that people compared us to that I hadn't even heard of before," says Rutledge, seated around a table at the Model Cafe in Allston with his band mates. "So I went to listen to their records. It was kind of fascinating to see those references." Walsh says that "if those comparisons are keys to unlock the door for people to listen to us, that's great. But most of them, I kind of scratch my head."

Walsh's impressionistic, often abstract verses about faculty retirement speeches ("To All My Scientist Colleagues I Bid You Farewell") and grave robbing ("Effie's on the Other Side") may leave some listeners doing the same. Which is all part of the esoteric fun: The group took its name from a fancifully absurd 1963 film by director Adolfas Mekas; one of the best numbers on the CD is cryptically titled, "It's All Been Downhill Since the Talkies Started to Sing"; and the band has even set to music text by author Jonathan Lethem.

Ultimately, Walsh's cultural obsessions with film and literature as well as music are an integral part of the band's modus operandi. "It's a think tank that encourages drinking," is how he describes the band's literary-minded approach.

"Ryan's own taste in art and literature is impeccable," says Misra general manager Cory Brown, who signed Hallelujah the Hills to the label, in an e-mail. "The lyrics are great, the choice of language is exhilarating, the melodies are delightful, and on top of all that, the arrangements are perfect to me. I have faith in this band, and I have faith in their instincts."

BITS & PIECES Tonight: Me and Joan Collins plays the Abbey Lounge. The Wandas play the Paradise Lounge. The Luxury is at T.T. the Bear's. Tomorrow: Godsmack headlines the Opera House. Stereo Total is at the Middle East Downstairs. Andrea Gillis is at the Plough & Stars. Christian McNeill plays the Lizard Lounge.