Saying that the band Dredg can't stick to one specific musical style is like saying AC/DC has made a few albums dedicated to rocking -- it's a vast understatement worthy of a slap upside the head.

One of this era's most overlooked bands in rock, Dredg has slowly but surely built an underground following with a musical variety that is not comparable to anything else. Elements of Jazz, Middle-Eastern music, and more show up without any warning in Dredg's progressive style -- showcased especially well on its critically acclaimed second album El Cielo, a concept record in which the issue of sleep paralysis is the songs' main focus.

All of Dredg's albums have a concept behind them. Yes, concept albums have been known to be pompous, and sometimes even downright weird -- Mr. Roboto ring a bell? -- but using this formula, Dredg has become one of the best bands in rock that you probably don't know about.

Catch Without Arms, Dredg's third and newest release, has the potential to bring the band into much bigger audiences, but may waver its reputation with its diehard fans as being musical geniuses. The album is definitely the band's most straight-forward rock album to date, and the band has left behind many of the long-sweeping instrumentals in older material and churned out an album containing 12 fairly stripped-down songs.

Of course, 'stripped down' in the sense that the album is missing the musical strangeness that made the band so original. The opening track on Catch Without Arms, "Ode To The Sun," is a fast rocker with lots of fairly static rock riffs, yet it still manages to please the ear.

Catch isn't completely devoid of the creative power that Dredg has used in the past. "Zebraskin" contains a very jazzy and almost dream-like tone to it, while the first single from the album, "Bug Eyes," contains a reverb-drenched slide guitar that makes the song almost haunting.

An element that is quite reminiscent of earlier Dredg material on the new album is its lyrical content -- the incredibly descriptive poetry by Gavin Hayes, the group's lead singer. While earlier albums focused on nature and looking at life in its purest form, most of Catch Without Arms focuses on individuality. Not anything groundbreaking as far as the message is concerned -- but it may be the direction that Dredg has to head if they feel the need to make it out of their Los Gatos, Calif., area and into mainstream radio play.