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Once, the indie/college rock sound was defined by a resistance to mainstream pop music. Now, the same loose collective has developed more striking and better defined melodic hooks than what qualifies as conventional pop these days. So what is the biggest casualty of the indie-goes-big trend change? It’s almost inarguably the bread and butter of countless great lesser-known groups from the late 80s/early 90s: the fuzzy lo-fi guitar jangle of Archers of Loaf and Sebadoh and Superchunk and Jawbox and countless others. Oxford Collapse would have sounded at home during that era, but they might have also become lost in the shuffle. Positioned in the 21st century, they sound fresh and invigorated, if not terribly original.

There’s no doubt that Oxford follows the playbook of their forefathers. The lyrics are alternately shyly trite and obstinately impenetrable. They detail moods instead of messages; fragments of none-too-ponderous observations and memories. This fits in snugly with their songcraft—non-traditional sing-along choruses buttressed by twinkling melodies blanketed in feedback. There is a tale or two to tell (“John Blood” is a wrestler’s narrative, I think), but they seem beside the point, and the abstract realism of the words casts a deep shadow: we’re not supposed to care, right? It’s not posturing, no, but by either mumbling or croaking his way through each track, singer Michael Pace leads us to believe that it’s an unnecessary investment. Oxford Collapse, like their mostly disbanded peers/influences, is about adventurous guitar rock.

They’re at least savvy enough to know they can’t out-Pavement any of their heroes. There’s plenty of variety to break up Bits, the group’s fourth full-length. The spare “A Wedding” is just singing against a wheezing cello. “Vernon-Jackson” slows things down after the first two rockers and Pace does his best job of aping John Darnielle. And they borrow from Apples in Stereo, one of the 90s indie rock heroes that didn’t sound like those others, while tearing through “Featherbeds.”

But Bits is at its best when the music flexes its muscle. They never top those first two tracks, “Electric Arc” and “The Birthday Wars.” The first sways between tingling guitars balanced over quick step drum kicks and the frantic downplay of its crisply noisy choruses. “Birthday” has a warm DIY-vibe, where the vocals are mixed in the same layer as the music, and everything has a hollow, tinny echo; if polished, it might have been overwhelming and edgeless. Neither of these are as strong an individual moment as 2006’s “Please Visit Our National Parks,” though. Other highlights include “Young Love Delivers” and “For the Winter Coats,” both cut of the same cloth. When Oxford keeps their tentative ambitions in check, they’re usually quite efficient and invigorating.

The real secret to Oxford Collapse’s success, though, is that the group (and their sound) aesthetic is actually a little misleading. They seem tightly-coiled, planning every move with painstaking preparation, stuffing each musical note with a feverish purpose that allows for no fuss. It’s an indication that the band is operating at full capacity, with each piece complimenting the abilities of the others. But within each mostly brief song beats the heart of freeform jazz, the unpredictability of a group that just wants to barrel ahead recklessly. Although much more prevalent on Oxford’s last LP, Remember the Night Parties, it’s also intentionally sprinkled with minor musical gaffes, ones that make the recording sound more spontaneous and less produced. All of these elements working in conjunction lend nearly every track the sort of immediate intrigue that most acts could only hope for. No, not every song works, but it’s going to take several listens to figure out why.

The biggest flaw of Bits is that it’s front-loaded. Not so much that the two best tracks are over right off the bat, but rather because the second half comes perilously close to being monotonous. The last four songs, while hardly cookie-cutter efforts, have a depressing sameness about them. They’re all dominated far more by the hammering repetition of the percussion instead of a gurgling guitar riff. And there’s little variety to the marching rhythm; even the faint and droning guitar work is usually nothing more than disparate notes tingling back and forth again and again. Scattering them among the rest might have helped—none of them are individually bad songs in the slightest—but lumping them all together closes the album with a sigh instead of a hurrah. Maybe tinkering with the track order would help.

While it lacks a killer single, suffers from some forgivable unevenness and ends weakly, Bits works as one of those album’s appealing enough to recommend and spin repeatedly without being one that you itch to rush out and share with friends and strangers. It’s an affable album, a pleasant reminder of the lo-fi heyday. Oxford Collapse may not be a truly buzzworthy band but amidst the growing ponderous qualities of indie music, they fill a now gaping hole quite nicely.