The East Bay Three.

PHOTO BY ALLISON DONLEVY

Experimental Oakland band Religious Girls released new album I Want to Believe today (well, technically this morning at midnight) – and it's free for download until the witching hour. After that, even the band is unsure of what the cost will be – they're still looking for a label to release it. Suffice to say, you should check it today.

Full disclosure: I was slipped the file early, and having been freaking out about it for the past week. As the X-Files-referenced name implies, it's a hazy, eerie explosion of a record, all tribal drumming and swelling screams – perfect for extraterrestrial hunting in a misty forest, or Flukeman crushing.

Listen to a track after the jump.

It's all very familiar, in a sick, twisted world way. Even the font used for the band name looks like some gloopy neon green 1990s reference, something out of Garbage Pail Kids or Aaahh!!! Real Monsters or Nickelodeon's slime, or something more sinister. And here's the trippy blog post about it.

The band's next SF show is Sept. 30 at Public Works.