When a band names its debut album after an image from a Jonathan Safran Foer novel, it's a safe bet to say that the territory you're in is more Dirty Projectors than Ramones.

Sure enough, Washington, D.C., outfit Deleted Scenes are an arty indie pop ensemble, and they freely shift between a colorful patchwork of carefully tweaked textures, creating an arch but urgent private universe of sounds on their second album, Young People's Church of the Air.

But one shouldn't necessarily approach the album expecting to encounter the semi-precious, rarefied realm of artists like the aforementioned Projectors -- Deleted Scenes do offer up actual pop and rock as part of their eclectic menu, just from a rather skewed perspective.

"Baltika 9," for instance, could be Devo practicing in a garage after taking too much Ecstasy, and while "The Future of Hair Metal" offers no echoes of Warrant or Poison, title notwithstanding, it does dare to imagine what might have happened if Modest Mouse had mated with Animal Collective when no one was paying attention.

There's also a fair amount of lo-fi action going on, as in the hushed, acoustic-based "Nassau." If anything, one of the album's defining features is the feeling that you're listening to everything from a great distance that adds to the evocative quality, something like hearing waves breaking on the beach from the privacy of your hotel room.