With broke-down grandeur and coy conviction, California’s Cryptacize tease pop music conventions for a challenging, if uneven, record. Dig That Treasure possesses a vague theatricality within its jarring, jazz-like arrangements and overwrought vocals. These tunes are certainly dramatic but that doesn’t necessarily make them engaging. Nedelle Torrisi packs “Stop Watch” and “Say You Will” with rich emotional swings in her vocal phrasing alone, while guitarist Chris Cohen (Deerhoof, The Curtains) oversees the musical mania that serves as the record’s dynamically lo-fi soundtrack. The spirit of improvisation lifts and drags “Heaven is Human,” which Torrisi renders with cinematic zeal, while Cohen’s “How Did the Actor Laugh?” is an unapologetically post-modern, NYC-derived art-piece. In general, the scope of these Cryptacize songs is admirable but their execution is not quite clever enough.

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