In the newest decades, psychedelia has solidified into something of a memory of what psych rock should look and sound like. Reverb has run rampant across the genre, with hazy, druggy vibes surging underneath even the most straightforward guitar rock. Local bands like the Night Beats have made a career of melting brains with warbly riffs and martial beats. As with any subgenre, psych rock has congealed into a formula, even as it's beset by variations and injections of unique character.

Surf rock has become almost inseparable from psych rock, what with their shared love of gauzy guitars and prominent rhythm sections. Blazing trails has been replaced by meditative sojourns that will the body to sway and blur the eyes. Killer Ghost make music for buzzing heads and jelly legs.

"I met Sharif Elassiouti at a bar in Seattle," says drummer Benjamin Redder. "I started going there because I didn't have any friends. ... Then, he took me on a double date with his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. I didn't really talk to her; I just talked to Sharif all night. We were sitting in an arcade, and he just looked at me and said, ‘Wanna start a band?' I said yes, even though I didn't know how to play anything."

Soon, Redder and lead singer Elassiouti met up with Simon Biddle-Snead (bass) and Molly Bartlett (keyboards). I speak to Redder from the road, somewhere in Oregon. They've been on tour with Gang Cult, a band that takes the surf rock genre and injects it with dark overtones and nervy energy. They started out in Portland, before heading down to Southern California, and coming back up.

"We've just done a 13-hour drive from Long Beach to somewhere in Oregon," says Redder. "We started in Portland, and our van caught fire the next day (laughs). A fan drove down from Seattle, picked us up in Portland, and has stayed with us for the rest of the tour. We missed two shows because of it."

For a band that was essentially formed on the whim of two people talking in a bar, with one of them not really knowing how to play an instrument, Killer Ghost is as tight of a band as is going on in the psych rock world. Their recent EP, Sad Boys Magic Club, is full of bright melodies and evocative vibes. All of the calling cards of today's psychedelia remain, but what matters is the amount of character the band can bring to the table, which is made known in spades with Killer Ghost.

Their touring partners, Gang Cult, take a different tact. As a pairing, they are somewhat reminiscent of The Odd Couple - two sides of the same depressive coin. Whereas Killer Ghost filter their anxieties through catchy rhythms and bouncy psych rock, Gang Cult confront their issues head-on and abundantly.

On their recent EP, Neck Tat (whose cover features a razor blade cutting a line out of a rolling wave), Gang Cult open aggressively with "Know Secrets." Beginning any album with a voice yelling, "Hey there motherfucker!" is a surefire way to get the listener's ears to prick up. Still, while the ragged edges of punk come more into play with Gang Cult, there's a shared affinity for the smoothing element of surf rock.

It's easy to imagine Killer Ghost's surf rock inspiring waves to come breezing into the shore, while Gang Cult's waves might be more like the 50-foot monster that ate Patrick Swayze at the end of Point Break.

In either case, there's a danger of being swallowed by the sound.

KILLER GHOST, GANG CULT, w/Shrews, Red Ribbon, 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 23, Bob's Java Jive, 2102 South Tacoma Way, Tacoma, $5, 253.475.9843