In his 1817 autobiography Biographia Literaria, English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote that it was “willing suspension of disbelief” that constituted true poetic faith, reflecting on the use of fantastical or unrealistic elements in literature. Though Coleridge’s idea—that a writer can use “human interest and a semblance of truth” to suspend a reader’s judgement and allow them to submit to the narrative that they’re creating—was originally coined in a literary context, it has since been stretched to apply to any act in which a viewer or consumer allows themselves to believe in a seemingly impossible idea. That idea of suspended disbelief is one of the things that I enjoy most about some of the music that I love; though I do appreciate both impressionistic and boldly personal music, I have a particular soft spot for records that feel physically foreign, as if their topography and idiosyncrasies are separate from those found within the world that I know. It’s a notion that I see reflected in much of my music library (one of my favorite examples from recent years is Dirty Projectors’ “Cannibal Resource,” a song that Matthew Perpetua tidily summed up as having the “effect of making the listener feel as though they are passing through a portal and entering a new world”), perhaps most curiously in the too-good-to-be-true weirdo pop of Montreal’s Each Other.

It felt apropos, then, that Each Other’s last release—the uncannily good Heavily Spaced, an EP that consumed and fascinated me for the better part of last year—dwelled on a phrase that seemed to encapsulate why I enjoy their music so much: “It feels like a daydream.” That line, repeated amid swirls of guitar and haphazard rhythms on “A Strong Spinning,” surprised me in a way that was unique for this band. Up until that point, my infatuation with Each Other has been almost entirely instrumental—their rapid-fire time changes and jangly guitar interplay were fun and charming in a way that few other guitar bands that then I knew of could achieve—and yet I had suddenly become obsessed with those five words and their denotative significance. There’s a special kind of clarity there; such lyrical forwardness could have made the surrounding instrumental flourishes seem superfluous in comparison, yet everything the band was doing synthesized into an amazing, almost transcendental whole.

On Being Elastic, the band’s debut full-length, Each Other build upon Heavily Spaced’s strengths to create some of their most intriguing work yet. There are some moments here that reach the same level of alchemy as “A Strong Spinning,” and although some tracks do falter throughout these forty minutes, that every song on Being Elastic is compelling on some level is—debut album or not—still an impressive accomplishment. Lead single “Send Your Signals” rides an acerbic bounce before launching into one of Each Other’s best choruses: “Send me your signals / it’s only me and you” delivered in a lovely, unexpected falsetto. “The Trick You Gave Up” saunters along with a pleasant groove and then dives into a rapid gallop about two and a half minutes in; a similar explosion happens on “Seeing Doubles, Dreaming Troubles,” a bass-heavy trip that grows into the most forwardly fun song on the record. It’s hard to describe these songs without relying on a linear, almost narrative style; each track progresses through so many modulations that it’s sometimes difficult to discern where one ends and another begins. And yet through the (admittedly enjoyable) fog of knotted melodies and abrupt tempo changes, there are lyrical flashes all over this record that hint at another level of meaning: the excellent “Swell Patterns” contains the gem “Put me in my place / I don’t want to escape / I want to feel contained” and the aforementioned chorus on “Send Your Signals” suggests a love story as twisted as the band’s guitar work.

Of course, there’s a balance to be struck between being weird in an engaging way and being weird for the sake of weirdness. Where that line falls is ultimately a question of taste, something that changes from person to person or, for those like me, from hour to hour. I’ve listened to Being Elastic countless times now, and I’ve come away from it with different positives and negatives each time. Still, I’ve been returning to this album habitually over the past month, attracted by that shape-shifting quality and its otherworldly nature—arguably its greatest strength. The more that I pay attention to the nuances of their work, the more Each Other is able to transport me to their own strange universe. At this point in my life, I can’t think of many places I’d rather be.

Being Elastic is available March 4th via Lefse Records.