Unicycle Loves You: Big ideas meet the skill to deliver

Unicycle Loves You, "Unicycle Loves You" (Highwheel)

The debut album by Chicago's Unicycle Loves You opens with clattering percussion, backward keyboard sounds and wordless falsetto vocals that portend some sort of Yeasayer-ish experimental antics. However, the quintet spends the rest of "Great Shopping for Seniors" touring through several winsome pop modes, bringing to mind both The New Pornographers and The Cars. They properly prepare a listener for brief, breezy songs that don't sit still for very long.

ULY are obviously not short on ambition or ideas, and their skill is typically up to the task. Bouncy rhythms and Adam Labrada's new wavey keyboards dominate the musical palette, while a boy/boy/girl vocal trio stokes the pleasant post-punk of "Kiki Bridges," the shifting shuffle of "Hawaii!" and handclap-laden hooks of "We Got Animals." Doo-wop piano makes a pleasant intrusion in the swinging closer, "Dangerous Decade." Celebratory horns and a woozy organ trade off during "Woman Bait for Manfish," which surely sounds gigantic live.

The brooding "Yum Pla Muk" seems out of place with its fiery guitar finish, yet founding guitarist/vocalist Jim Carroll hits the spot with a noirish tone somewhere between The National's Matt Berninger and vintage Bowie. Unicycle Loves You is otherwise all about the bustling pop confection. At times, the group veers too far into self-conscious quirksville (see the gaudy "Under 18"), but their sweet jumble of treats often goes down with surprising smoothness.

Unicycle Loves You performs with La Scala and My Gold Mask at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., Chicago. $8. (773) 276-3600 or emptybottle.com.