Gollylagging brew their influences in a locally sourced witch's cauldron on "Red Fish"

There's something so utterly escapist about "Red Fish," the new single from Gollylagging, a mainstay Boston four-piece. It sounds like an alternative reality where that band you used to see live from your hometown actually wrote the hit they'd been chasing. Gollylagging is that band who played while you successfully smuggled Raspberry Rubinoff in water bottles into their sold-out album release show at the local college venue. Girls on tables, mosh pits, and crowdsurfers galore: the venue is way past capacity, and that guy who you might see in a lecture next week is an indie rockstar falling backward into the crowd. Armed with a full quiver of ideas, the four members — guitarist and frontman Jake Regulbuto, guitarist and vocalist Jules Skiffington, drummer Andrew Garas, and bassist Joey Lorant — let the song effortlessly skate between their creative impulses. The guitar intro calls to mind Providence-born Deer Tick and their best head-nodding bluesy folk acoustic licks until the mix is beset with fuzzed-out electric guitars. When asked about the use of programmed drums, Garas replied, “It was cool to just kind of experiment a little more with how you can make percussion sound. Wheth...