Less than a year after releasing their full-length debut Cosmic Cash —which almost immediately scored Garcia Peoples hometown hero status for a certain sect of Northeast post-jam fans—the New Jersey outfit have already dropped Natural Facts , their second collection of prog-leaning psychedelic exploration. It starts with howling wah-wah guitars and surging cymbals, like the crash of a wave that subsides into a gentle swirl of foam and spray. Layered guitars flicker and twinkle on driving mid-tempo rockers that often come unstuck in tricky odd-time segments. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before,” goes a line in “Canvas,” echoing “All You Need Is Love,” but with a jaded edge. Garcia Peoples often take left turns, driving their trippy psych jams into gnarled, art-rock hairpins. “Weathered Mountains” is almost Zappa-ish, with its shifting metric logic, five-beat phrases, waltz-time segments and uneven accents. To their credit, Garcia Peoples pull off the rush of styles and details without creating any whiplash or jarring jump-cuts. They do often evoke the honored name of Jerry Garcia with their cascading guitar lines, but early Pink Floyd and bands like Secret Machines come to mind as well. Fans of Steve Gunn might hear a kinship. This is hippie music, but it has a fair bit of muscle and amped-up juice. “High Noon Violence” sounds like a bit of Brit-folk revival with its little hammered-off ornaments. If there’s a theme to these songs, then it’s one of our helplessness in the face of time and the elements—we’re puny things in comparison to the vastness of the wind, the tides, the mountains, the cosmos and eternity, and that’s totally cool