You'd be forgiven for thinking such an inclusive-sounding album would take the kitchen-sink tack on its miniature pop odyssey, and Transmission Fields will inevitably attract the ire of avant-garde rockists who'd rather they did. Almost a century of amorphous "modernism" has maligned the simplistic, melodic, and sentimental urges that periodically surface in the slipstream of musical composition. But for every blandly pretty ballad, there's a song like "While I Sleep," which swaddles its quintessentially bubblegum chords in sheets of bittersweet counterpoint melody.

It's hard to pin down why Transmission Fields never feel like they're talking down to you or skirting the airbrushed condescension of a Coldplay single in their uber-accessible tracks. The greatest asset on that count is probably Lee Neitzel's effortlessly superior voice, which anchors anthemic refrains with ideal falsetto and just a pinch of rasp. There's something geographically on point about this quartet of North Carolinians as well—where we might expect shiny bombast from such power pop, the Fields are more about coziness, which is why the breezy southern rock guitar solo in "Run" comes more naturally than the glassy left-field electro-breakdown in "Days of Waiting." And while those valleys do cut swaths between the high points—and sometimes TF are guilty of killing time before the climb—I won't argue with a band that successfully molds conventions rather than casually obliterating them.