Somebody much smarter than we are once noted that fame and fortune don't buy you happiness -- they buy you freedom. Specifically, the freedom to do what you want, how you want, when you want and with who you want.

Well, when Sam Roberts' debut album We Were Born in a Flame came out of nowhere to top charts and snag three Juno Awards in 2004, he earned himself a big ole chunk of freedom. And the Montreal pop-rocker takes full advantage of it on his sophomore disc.

Recorded in an old converted church in middle-of-nowhere Australia, the 48-minute Chemical City is a loose, freewheeling affair several steps removed from Born in a Flame. While the former consisted of fat-free guitar-pop nuggets painstakingly crafted by Roberts alone in the studio, this is a more collaborative and organic effort.

Letting their hair down and stretching out in the studio, Roberts and his band unspool 10 expansive, keyboard-rich cuts of psychedelic Kinksian pop (most telling title: Mystified, Heavy) that don't exactly grab you the first time through, but grow on you with repeated spins. Clearly, everyone involved here was less concerned with crafting a catchy chorus than with indulging their creative impulses and allowing these tunes to chart their own courses and find their own endings.

If that sort of trippy tunage turns your crank, then by all means, strap on the headphones, gaze at the boogie-van mural artwork, read along with the acid-washed lyrics ("Over land, I travelled time and space and quicksand") and dig one of the freakier major-label CanRock records you're likely to hear this year. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a repeat of Brother Down or Don't Walk Away Eileen, you may come away from Chemical City with the belief that Roberts had a tad too much freedom for his own good.

Track Listing:

1. The Gate
2. Bridge To Nowhere
3. With A Bullet
4. Mind Flood
5. Uprising Down Under
6. Mystified, Heavy
7. An American Draft Dodger In Thunder Bay
8. The Bootleg Saint
9. The Resistance
10. A Stone Would Cry Out