The Ponys play the Black Cat Backstage tonight with Jay Reatard. $10, Doors at 9 p.m.

The Ponys are one of those buzz bands that seem perennially plagued with the “next big thing” tag. Hailing from Chicago, a city full of legends of all sorts and more than a few hype-worthy up-and-comers, theirs is a difficult task. But 2006’s Turn the Lights Out picked up where Celebration Castle left off and took it one step further: this time they enlisted John Agnello (the man behind the deluxe guitar sounds on the most recent Hold Steady and Sonic Youth releases) to help beef things up. They’ve done just that, blanketing their driving melodies with a haze of loud, menacing guitar sounds. The combination brings to mind Viva Voce or maybe higher-fi version of the Rainbow Quartz psych groups – where thumping drums meet guitars addled with echo, reverb, and delay. There’s no one standout on the album, but that just means there are plenty of treasures to go around. Opener “Double Vision” is Jesus and Mary Chain via the Black Keys, “Kingdom of Hearts” is dark but pretty shoegazer, and “Pickpocket Song” is a spacey and meandering mini-epic.

In the midst of a summer tour that will take them down the East Coast and back to their Windy City home, lead singer and guitarist Jered Gummere took some time to talk to us.

How’s the tour going so far?
We’ve been gone a few days. Started at the Pitchfork Festival, then just been on the road – us and Jay Reatard and Deerhunter for some of the dates.

How was the Pitchfork Festival? It seemed to get good reviews.
Nice, I mean, it was pretty small, and not a lot of corporate sponsorship banners everywhere. We saw Yoko Ono…that was pretty weird. We watched Deerhunter too, they’re always great.