The second album by Baltimore quartet Ponytail, Ice Cream Spiritual, sounds like what some other bands would call a rehearsal tape. Riffs and rhythms seem to loosely come together and build steam, while never congealing into repetitive song structures, and singer Molly Siegel might as well be laying down a rough scratch vocal, her spontaneous trills and squeals rarely seeming to consist of any written lyrics.

But if the tracks on Ice Cream Spiritual, ever did cohere into traditional, predictable songs, they’d lose the blissful, incoherent rush that is the band’s stock in trade. With its bizarre, free-wheeling onslaught of deceptively chaotic two-guitar skronk, Ponytail sound like what would happen if a suburban garage band decided to sound like The Boredoms circa Super Ae instead of shooting for Warped Tour blandness.

And producer J Robbins does the band’s reputation as a live act justice by simply getting out of the way and capturing them on tape as accurately as possible, while letting their effects pedals determine the tone and texture of the album.

“Sky Drool” begins with disco hi-hats and Siegel cooing “ooh baby ooh,” sounding like it might turn into a cover of “Edge Of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks at any moment, but then quickly divebombs back into the full tilt art rock of the rest of the album. If Ice Cream Spiritual wasn’t a great album, then it would have to be the most kick-ass rehearsal tape ever made.