To see Citay live is to get swept up in the band's own hazy, yet exciting atmosphere. The drums pump through the club as the female vocals sigh in harmony, and the upper-register guitars buzz along in thirds like twin jet engines through the cloudbursts of acoustic guitar. Though the musicians have clearly worked out the arrangements way ahead of time, the pieces can suddenly veer into the turbulence of controlled chaos. Says Ezra Feinberg of Citay, which just released its third album, Dream Get Together, on Dead Oceans last month, "Live, there are points in our set that get washed out, that get chaotic. And so, for the most part it's a pretty tight ship, but definitely there are parts of the set that are wide open."

Feinberg - the singer, songwriter and guitarist of the San Francisco six-piece - says that Citay's approach to recording and performance is a blend of control-freakish composition and freewheeling rock 'n' roll. Citay's recorded tracks, as with their live performances, are spaced-out odysseys, sometimes anchored with a single melodic line while the layers of sound pile up and up. Owing significantly to the chops of Feinberg's collaborator Tim Green of the San Francisco quasi-metal trio the Fucking Champs, the layers on Dream Get Together - the band's follow-up to 2007's well-received Little Kingdom - boast a wide range of sounds, from the fluid Thin Lizzy-style guitar harmonies and Southern rock chord structures to the occasional fits of Sabbath and Metallica.

A perfectionist in and out of the studio, Feinberg will spend weeks and months working out the arrangements to his songs, usually using GarageBand on his Mac to experiment with different ideas. "GarageBand is like a four-track, you know, but with more tracks," he says. "I just mess around. Just come up with something, see what sounds good on top of it. If that doesn't sound good, you take it out and you come up with something different."

While the tunes are painstakingly composed by Feinberg, the resulting recordings can erupt into bouts of spontaneity. The record's debut single, "Careful with that Hat," kicks off with a bouncing guitar riff and builds throughout in a clearly planned fashion with long instrumental breaks between the lyrics. But then it suddenly breaks out into an off-the-wall guitar solo during the outro, courtesy of guitarist Josh Pollock, who synchs the delay effect with the song's rhythm so it almost sounds as if he's harmonizing with himself.

Feinberg describes his songs as "really composed and really worked-out for months and months before we get to the studio." But this preparation allows for bursts of creativity from everyone in the band. He explains, "Because there's been all that composition, all that work beforehand - which is not about improvisation, which is all about labor and hard work at songwriting - then we get into the studio, and that's when the spontaneous stuff can just happen. It's my theory that the more work you put in before getting to the studio, the better the spontaneous moments can be once you're in the studio."

The origins of "Careful with that Hat" in particular illustrates how Feinberg begins the writing process. "Sometimes, I'll hear a song - a song that already exists - and I'll think to myself, I would like to take that song and basically rewrite it," he says. While rehearsing one day with a fellow musician from Arp, a New York-based krautrock band, he began to mess around on his guitar, playing a simple finger-picking riff. His friend thought Feinberg was copping the old Pink Floyd song, "Careful with that Axe, Eugene," and when Feinberg heard the track his friend referred to, it turned out the two riffs were uncannily similar. "And I thought, 'That was serendipity. I have to take this line and do something with it,'" he recalls. After toying with the idea on his computer for a long time, his riff developed its own identity and a Citay song emerged. "I took the riff and just started putting different things on top of it and experimenting with different vocal melodies and vocal harmonies and guitar melodies and guitar harmonies and different changes - and worked on it, and worked on it, and worked on it. And, pretty soon, it became a song."

Not every composition for Citay has to overwhelm, though. The new record's title track, which clocks in at a relatively concise five minutes, shuffles along in an Allman Brothers vein, delivering guitar hooks and vocals propulsive enough to accompany a laid-back motorcycle ride. The following number, "Secret Breakfast," is a psychedelic jam on a simple Mixolydian riff in D that incorporates layers of everything from psychedelic synthesizers to slide guitar. Surprisingly, the album then moves on to a slow acoustic ballad with "Mirror Kisses." In all, it's an disc full of left turns.

Feinberg has hoarded influences that, in his words, he "never grew out of," and that musical pack-rat mentality has led to a unique sound for his band. Green's own musical genome can burst into the mix in unexpected ways, as well. The track "Hunter" even digresses into some ...And Justice for All-like chugging. Add the "ah" choruses from vocalists Tahlia Harbour and April Hayley and the final product seems to belong to Citay alone. Not many artists, after all, can count both Boston and Sonic Youth among their influences.

"There are certain bands who I don't really listen to now the way I did when I was 14," he explains. "But for the most part, I've been collecting influences in my music ever since I started playing music when I was about 12. And I think that while I have outgrown certain things, for the most part I feel like I've held onto a lot."

It's easy to view Citay as a collective trying to bring classic rock back into the world of indie music. But as Feinberg is quick to assert, there is a legion of bands that share Citay's love of power chords and grandiose instrumental sections, including the Fruit Bats, Howlin' Rain and even Animal Collective with its allegiance to the Grateful Dead. Each of these groups takes its own stab at experimentation and Citay is no different, with its interest in unconventional song structures and alternate guitar tunings that give the pieces a more open feel than that which a standard-tuned guitar can offer. When asked what kinds of tunings he employs, however, Feinberg demurs, preferring to keep some aspects of the project cloaked in mystery. "You can't let it all out of the bag," he says.