Lethbridge’s Myelin Sheaths might have started as a science-themed goof, but like every project spearheaded by the city’s music maven, Paul Lawton, it’s also gotten down to business. Formed in 2009 around the core duo of bassist Martine Ménard and guitarist Cassandra Ward, the ladies quickly roped in Lawton on drums and Moby Dicks’ main man Joel Butler on the second six-string for a set at that year’s Sled Island festival. The result of this experiment was peppy garage rock with primitive stomp, boy-girl vocals and heaps of hooks that have earned the quartet attention through the tubes of the Internet and out into the world.

An eight-song CD self-released on Lawton’s Mammoth Cave imprint first gained the band some buzz, but it was the Do the Mental Twist 7-inch on Chicago label HoZac that turned the Sheaths into a bona fide Bunsen-burnt blow-up. The Stackticon 7-inch, released on Austria’s Bachelor Records, and a song for the Mammoth Cave Bloodstains Across Alberta EP has led to this month’s long-awaited full-length, Get On Your Nerves, released via Oakland label South Paw.

With a classic “one-two-three-four,” surfy instrumental opener “Gloves” bleeds into the Ramones-style sass ’n’ bash of “Mutations.” This is followed by a collection of shout-a-longs such as “Everything Is Contagious,” “Large Hadron Collider” and the organ-drenched “Wakeups,” plus a reworked version of old favourite “What’s Your Diagnosis?” Lawton’s penchant for no-fi basement sound hasn’t changed, but the four members have stepped up their songwriting and playing, even cramming in a bumblebee guitar solo and clattering drum break on album standout “Half-Wit.”

Keeping moving as always, upcoming releases from the Sheaths include the Dead Things cassette on Scotch Tapes, a 12-inch EP on Cleveland’s Dead Beat and a split cassette with Satan’s Youth Ministers on U.K. imprint Clan Destine.