Sleepy Sun’s music is a bridge to summer. Their tunes make you want to shake off winter’s coat, grab a few loved ones and a few beverages of your choice, and lay out on a blanket at the fairgrounds to watch this freak-out troupe take the stage. Comprised of a right-on rhythm section and featuring guitar pyrotechnics that oscillate between Spiritualized drone and Black Sabbath riffage, the band’s singers are dueling shamans: Rachel Williams is one wild woman possessed in ecstatic reverie, totally one with the proceedings; and Bret Constantino is the lysergic high priest looking and sounding every bit the love child of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. It’s easy to imagine yourself kicking back and letting the Sleepy Sun experience wash over you and your environs.

The band’s compositions are alternately mesmerizing and shredding, utilizing waves of sound to great effect. Their 2008 release, Embrace, caught the ears of more than a few critics and began to wend its way through the underground. This is psychedelic music for the new century, and the group—whose power derives from the sum of its rocking parts—seems poised to take an already impressive oeuvre to the next level. So grab a cold one and some friends and head on into summer with Sleepy Sun as part of your playlist. While you’re at it, be sure to join in with your neighbors in chanting a hearty “Let’s Get Weird.”