The Volta Sound

Cuts 2000-2004 (www.elephantstone.com)

The Volta Sound gets around like the women they sing about. The band has released an album or EP every year since 2000 and still has enough leftover songs to put together Cuts, a superb rarities collection that rivals any of its previous releases.

Cuts' pressing is small (only 100 copies), but its sound is anything but: The sprawling psychedelia drifts from lazy, languorous drones ("Suicide One") and the limber acoustic pop ("There Was a Time") of the band's most recent efforts to the more flammable, guitar-driven rock that characterized its earlier work ("Innocent and Arrogant"). "Take Me There" encapsulates all of the band's breadth, with frontman Mike Cormier singing of supernovas in a gentle murmur, before cresting guitar drowns his voice in feedback and dissonance. The song is eight minutes long, and it takes another eight to catch your breath.