Writer Michael Patrick Welch’s musical project—the White Bitch—has proven to be an admirably unpredictable project, one that can be acoustic or electric, funky or bombastic, solo or a group, theatrical or unadorned. The White Bitch’s Prey Drive suggests how Welch conceives of the songs, which is closer to their Prince-y roots and less the space rock extravaganzas they become when played live with Ray Bong. Bong is on the album, and the closer, “ASSTRAkt,” reflects the sort of textured, improvised soundscapes that periodically turn up in White Bitch shows, though it doesn’t quite build into a proper freakout.

The songs all reflect Welch’s intelligence, and they tend to have a central conflict between his ability to write a pop hook and the desire to see if that hook can withstand a significant amount of interference. Songs digress, sidetrack themselves, and deal with dynamic and textural shifts, and they almost always survive just fine, though nothing’s quite as satisfying as each song promises to be at the start.

I suspect that some songs would do better with stronger production. Welch recorded the album himself, and I wonder if the songs’ shapes would emerge more clearly with another production hand, and if his falsetto would come across with a little more warmth and power. That’s “What if …” stuff, though; as is, The White Bitch’s Prey Drive documents Welch’s mixed feelings about the musical mainstream, and his ability to put all those feelings in a song.