Pritzl Emotion : The Violet Burning: “The Violet Burning” Domo Records (***)

With influences ranging from Moby Grape and the Doors to Echo and the Bunnymen and U2, the Violent Burning, a quartet from Long Beach, has both passion and a skill for creating smoldering, urgent and experimental sound-scapes. The instrumental focus is on a three-guitar collage, but instead of a typical assault of up-tempo, electrified noise, this guitar work both grabs and glides, shifting tempos and textures to express an array of emotional peaks and valleys.

What really takes center stage, though, is singer Michael J. Pritzl. Often walking that fine line between darkness and light, the beguiling front man lets his emotional demons wreak havoc over the course of a dozen intense songs.

In the haunting “Underwater,” he cries out desperately to his lover: “Can I hold you under with me?” His characters teeter on the edge, sometimes tumbling into heartache and despair (“Are we falling like stones, am I your sinking star?”). The words become especially involving through Pritzl’s various vocal techniques--like his tantalizing falsetto in “Bind”--that give each song character and depth. Sturdy yet pliable, his versatile vocals shift remarkably well from the cool detachment of “Waiting” to the far more demanding ache of the melancholy “Goldmine.”

While “The Violet Burning” is predominantly dark in mood, a couple of selections bring a refreshingly lighter bounce to the project. Andy Prickett and Jeff Schroeder’s catchy guitar leads and Jason Pickersgill’s dancing bass lines highlight the funk-filled “Fever,” and “Arabic Tremelo Radio,” which recalls the melodic, up-tempo buzz of the Jesus and Mary Chain, is downright gleeful, at least for these guys.

Ambitious but overlong at 65 minutes, the album would have benefited from some tightening.

(Available through the Violet Burning, P.O. Box 30778, Long Beach, CA 90853. The Violent Burning plays June 14 at the Lava Room/Newport Station, 1945 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa, on a bill with Lifter, Water and 12-hr Mary. 9 p.m. $5. [714] 631-0526.)

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Albums are rated on a scale of * (poor) to **** (excellent).