When singer/guitarist Jon Ehrens first recorded an album as the Art Department in 2005, it was just one solo project of many, including Repelican and the Hypnic Jerks. Nearly five years after The Art Anthology, however, the band is a fully operational gigging trio, rounded out by drummer Mike Meno and bassist Jason Howe, who have helped Ehrens both expand and refine the Art Department’s rewardingly unusual sound and uncompromisingly narrow aesthetic boundaries.

On the new album, Paperwork/Birdwork, the debut release on Gen Pop Records, the Art Department sound much the same as they ever did, with fingerpicked guitar riffs and basslines tightly intertwining over driving closed hi-hat drumbeats and strangely tweaked high/low vocal harmonies. Even though the band recorded in professional studios this time and the final product shows it, the overall sound is remarkably faithful to the lo-fi first album, with the exception of none of the insistently rattling tambourine that was ubiquitous on The Art Anthology. Brevity is another one of the Art Department’s signatures; their songs average under two minutes, and they’ve probably never played a live set longer than a half hour. But the new album, even at just 18 minutes long, crams in a dozen tracks and is split into two distinct halves that were each recorded in different places.

The album’s first half, Paperwork, was recorded in Athens, Georgia last year, and features some more interesting new divergences from the original Art Department sound. Ehrens plays some xylophone, Howe overdubs tuba and trumped, and a trio of guest musicians add clarinet, violin and zither. And yet, once again the overall effect isn’t too different — the clarinet is especially audible on “Not Called The Shots” and “Axe To Grind,” and only the almost symphonic instrumental intro “Let’s Imply Stuff” is a complete departure from the band’s live sound.

The second side, Birdwork, was recorded earlier this year at Chris Freeland’s Beat Babies studio, and features the core trio at their best. “Small Net” is the closest thing to a pop hook the Art Department have ever managed since the early favorite “Dennis Quaid,” and the closer “Pains Me” retains some of that vaguely spooky, otherworldly vibe that make the band’s unusual sound more fascinating than off-putting. Paperwork/Birdwork was released on vinyl as a 45 RPM 12″, which is somewhat appropriate given that the Art Department have always sounded kind of like a ‘normal’ rock band’s records sped up. So if you don’t love the album, try playing it on 33 and see if you like it better.