RECORD REVIEW : Imagination, Freshness Still Rule : **** “Sad Astrology” by Eggplant (Dr. Dream).

Eggplant’s first, do-it-yourself album, “Monkeybars,” was a rough delight that showed what happens when a band full of imagination and unfettered by pretention cuts loose in the garage. With “Sad Astrology,” Eggplant got to hire a producer, smarten up the sound and dabble in some inventive studio effects and overdubs. But at the heart of it all, imagination still rules, and pretention is still locked out.

One has to stretch to find anything disagreeable about this album. There really was no need to redo “Confidant,” a ballad whose rougher rendition on “Monkeybars” was better suited to the song’s theme of post-adolescent awkwardness and anomie.

There are times when Jeff Beals’ airy, nasal singing verges on cuteness. But the fetching whimsicality of his songs supports the style. It could get tiresome if Beals had to carry the whole album, but Eggplant is lucky enough to have a second distinctive singer-songwriter in Jon Melkerson.

While Beals goes for humor in songs like the rambunctious garage-rockers “Sad Astrology” and “I Got An Idea” (written by Eggplant’s manager, Gary Calamar), Melkerson carries on an abstract but affecting discourse concerning the disappointing nature of life, and the obstacles that keep us from living with the vibrancy we’d wish for ourselves. Melkerson’s vocals are tunefully chastened, but he is no mope. His lyrics are about acting, coping and straining to keep up the effort. And his eloquent, tunefully fuzzed guitar lines put muscle behind those convictions.

Producer Russ Tolman has given Eggplant a clean but still forceful sound in which a multitracked guitar attack is embellished but not cluttered by such touches as marimba, bass clarinet, piano and extra percussion bits. Overall, the record is full of the surging, purposeful but airy motion that marked the Velvet Underground’s most pop-oriented album, “Loaded.” That side of the Velvets clearly is a big influence on Eggplant, although the band’s cover tribute to the New York underground goes, instead, to Tom Verlaine on a glistening version of “Breaking in My Heart.”

Saving the best of a very good bunch for last, Eggplant outdoes itself with “Unexpected,” a song that sounds like R.E.M. on a good day tackling the Grateful Dead’s valedictory “Box of Rain.” Written and sung by Melkerson, this pop-rock masterpiece kicks off with a stunning, pealing guitar riff, proceeds to a perfect, hooky chorus, serves up a wondrous melodic bridge, and caps it off with a swarm of twining guitars. Beyond all that, it provides a fine crystallization of Melkerson’s persona as the halting but undespairing Everyman. If “Unexpected” (and, for that matter, everything else here) gets the airing it deserves, this most unassuming of bands could have a hit on its hands.