On Sunset Rubdown’s fourth album, Dragonslayer, Spencer Krug has taken a page out of the playbook of his Swan Lake bandmate, Dan Bejar. Though Krug has always crafted his own brand of impenetrable narratives, Dragonslayer is thick with particularly Bejarian self-reference.

This poses a bit of a problem, as it’s already difficult enough for listeners to decipher what the hell Krug is talking about in his world of actors, virgins, trumpets and immolation without the singer-songwriter interrupting a song to wail “If I was a horse, I would throw up the reins if I was you,” a call back to “The Men are Called Horsemen There” from 2006’s Shut Up I am Dreaming.

Fortunately, Krug and his Sunset Rubdown bandmates partially overcome this self-indulgence by rocking the fuck out. Recorded live off the floor, the glam-prog of Dragonslayer hits hard, blasting listeners with ceaseless forward momentum and none of the icy detachment of 2007’s Random Spirit Lover. Krug’s lyrics hardly matter when the pure emotional power of his voice takes hold, making even the most nonsensical line or “Whoa-hoh-oh” — another Bejarian element — resonate.

Even with the more direct sound, though, Dragonslayer is going to be as bewildering to the uninitiated as tuning into a TV show for the first time during its penultimate episode.