Stephen McBean is back in the ’06 with another set of dirty, sedative-friendly rock songs that’ll make you want to do bad things. Manning the controls for Pink Mountaintops, Black Mountain, and Jerk with a Bomb over the last half decade, McBean has proven his abundant fertility in the neo-neo-psychedelic grove with five albums in five years.

Where the theme of the self-titled debut, Pink Mountaintops, seemed to revolve around sex, Axis of Evol explores Heaven and Hell, with little in between. McBean declares, “No, I’m not headed down the highway to Hell” in the somber opening track, “Comas.” He continues with, “I have been wrestling a dead angry deer,” and the only thing that comes to my mind is - Been there done that!

“Comas” bleeds into the best track on the album, “Cold Criminals.” With some really solid, distorted rhythm guitar, a wicked bass line, synthetic flourishes, and the foreboding lyrics, “Devil got us in his plan” and “God damn, we walk the line,” it certainly recalls Spacemen 3. (This apparent influence reveals itself later on “Plastic Man, You’re the Devil.”) It’s a great song no matter its familiarity. No bones about it.

Axis of Evol forges through several more dark morality tales before landing on “Lord, Let Us Shine.” It’s the “Beginning to See the Light” moment that washes away the sins of the night before that has been the last five songs. Mildly hip hop-esque with its steady drum machine beat, “Lord, Let Us Shine” provides the sole moral mountaintop on the album. And just when you’re ready to see the light, McBean closes out the album and brings us back to purgatory base camp with “How Can We Get Free.”

Although, by no means a sophomore slump, Axis of Evol doesn’t immediately hit me over the head the way Pink Mountaintops did. It’s still a very strong album showcasing Stephen McBean’s knack for exploring the dark side through the tasteful vocabulary of the underground rock music of the last 35 years.