Elf Power is not the slogan of a North Pole labor strike, though the so-named Athens, Georgia, quintet conjures similarly fanciful notions. The art-popping group makes enough references to roaring giants and laughing spiders to excite the faithful at a Dungeons & Dragons convention. But singer/ songwriter Andrew Rieger insists that keeping it unreal doesn't mean becoming Donovan. "You can use images like that without being silly," he says. "It can be poetic and kind of majestic." Aural grandeur runs rampant on Elf Power's fifth album, The Winter is Coming, which offers a pastoral take on neopsychedelia. Sidestepping folk-wimp territory, the band loads the album with Dixieland horn bursts, woozy hornet's-buzz guitar, and the wobbly groan of the gourdalin — a string instrument that multi-instrumentalist Laura Carter constructed from a gourd and a broomstick. Despite its gnome-dropping tendencies, the record touches on surprisingly grounded topics: "People Underneath" is about tunnel dwellers in New York City's subway. Elf Power formed in the mid-90's when Rieger and Carter moved from Athens to New York City and back again, finding the relaxed environment of the South more productive. After four esoteric albums, Winter reached the upper register of the college radio charts. It doesn't hurt that the band is part of the Elephant 6, a collective of home-studio rats beloved by the indie-ground for wringing Sgt. Pepper scope out of Sebadoh budgets. Though grateful for the association (fellow E6ers Will Hart of Olivia Tremor Control and Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel contribute to Winter), the band could do without certain misconceptions surrounding the E6 mystique. "People think we're a drugged-out hippie commune," Rieger says, "and live in a big house and walk around naked." The reality — college-town drudgework squeezed between recording and tours — is less romantic. "I deliver pizza to frat kids," bassist Bryan Poole says, "whom I want to kill." TIM KENNEALLY