Kevin Bronson on June 5th, 2013

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You’ve been on those long drives where it feels as if the car is actually being propelled by the stereo and not an internal combustion engine, right? So it is with the seen-better-days Honda in director Steve Hanft’s video for the Radar Brothers’ “If We Were Banished.” Inspired or inhabited by the song, the car takes matters into its own hands … er, gears … and treks from Death Valley to a happy ending at sunset at Zuma Beach. The oozing psychedelia of the song itself is one of the highlights of Radar Brothers’ new album, “Eight,” the long-running Silver Lake band’s latest for Merge Records. Fans new to the collective revolving around singer-guitarist Jim Putnam will want to start with this latest album, the boldest yet from a band that works in varying shades subtlety and otherworldly imagery, and be sure not to skip 2002’s “And the Surrounding Mountains.” Radar Brothers kick off a 12-date tour of the western U.S. next week at the Satellite.

||| Live: Radar Brothers play June 12 at the Satellite.

||| Previously: Download “If We Were Banished”