LITTLE ROCK — The piano-pounding, indie-pop rocking, ethereal-voiced Chase Pagan's sophomore release, Bells & Whistles, is actually his third album.

Born in Jackson, Miss., raised in Wynne and now living in Mountain Home (with three pet goats named Elvis, Priscilla and Lisa Marie), the 26-year-old Pagan's first album was a 15-song effort produced by nu metal producer Ross Robinson after Pagan signed to Geffen Records through a deal with Robinson's own label I Am Recording. Geffen was unimpressed with Pagan's work, so Pagan walked away from Geffen and Robinson to reinvent himself as a musician.

The result was the 2007 album, Oh, Musica!, a rich album grandiose in its scope blending rock, baroque pop, soul and vaudevillian, from the rambunctious piano stomp of "Waltzing in the Sky" to the quiet acoustic shuffle of "Paperboat." Oh, Musica! also aptly displayed Pagan's amazing vocals, as the singer's angelic, gorgeous falsetto graced the 11 tunes, resembling the pipes of Jeff Buckley with a little Southern twang.

The vocal theatrics are still present on Bells & Whistles, but Pagan's musical direction has shifted slightly - a little less Rufus Wainwright in scope, more organic and natural. The 13 tunes of Bells & Whistles - released by the Jackson, Miss.-based Esperanza Plantation record label - are packed into 42 and a half minutes, and were recorded by Chad Copelin in Norman, Okla., at Blackwatch Studio in the fall of 2008. Pagan brought 21 tunes to Oklahoma and finished 17 in a three-week recording marathon, working on instruments (The multi-instrumentalist Pagan played 90 percent of the music on the album) from noon to midnight and tracking vocals from midnight to 4 a.m.

But Bells & Whistles doesn't sound like a late-night, fall creation. It's mostly a bright and shiny, upbeat and bouncing collection of baroque pop powered by piano and heavily sprinkled with horns, accordion, organ and even banjo. A spacious musical landscape is covered on Bells & Whistles, but Pagan has tightened the reins on his palette of musical subgenres, creating a work that is still broad in its musical scope but more focused.

Good: Bells & Whistles kicks off with the stomping country rock of "The Lonely Life," about a father reaching out to his estranged son - "My son has just called me for the first time in 16 years/Oh, it's been such a long time since I've heard his voice." - and ends with the beautiful, heartbreaking dirge "Train-a-Coming" - "It's all right/It's all right/It's all right to cry sometimes." - an acoustic tune with a gentle rhythm that is more hopeful than mournful.

The musical territory Bells & Whistles covers between its bookends is astounding. "Life Garden" is a jaunty number with cabaret piano, horns and psychedelic guitar. It toes the line of excess with its layering of instruments but the introduction of the guitar-powered chorus - "Nobody ever figures out/How to live until they get so old." - jerks the tune back to the middle of Pagan's wonderfully weird middle road. "Better Off" uses a clean, indie rock guitar riff, organ and Pagan's words of personal satisfaction - "There's nothing I can do/I'm better off without it" - to create its gentle loveliness. And like a gathering storm on the horizon, "Gun and the Sword" is all ominous piano and apocalyptic drumming before the chorus rights the indie pop ship even while the lyrics are still dark: "Live your life in a bottle/You gotta stand up straight and do what you're told."

The glittering, barroom bounce of "John & Betty" matches its Hollywood tale of a prostitute promising to marry her John with Betty voiced by warbling Little Rock folk rock troubadour Chris Denny: "Oh, John I want you to know I love you so/I'm gonna marry you someday/And you won't have to pay."

Bad: While Oh, Musica! wallowed in its musical excesses at points, Bells & Whistles mostly avoids the pitfalls of too many instruments in the musical kitchen (except with "Bring Down the Day"). Elsewhere, the missteps on Bells & Whistles are minor. "Summer Comes" combines a strummed guitar rhythm and Dixieland horns - an interesting idea that is too fleeting to leave an impression in its two minutes. And Pagan's breathy, vocal Olympics on tunes such as the otherwise excellent "Nameless" and "Just Fine" make the words indecipherable at points.

Must haves: "The Lonely Life," "Life Garden," "Gun and the Sword," "John & Betty," "Don't Be Gay (Working Title)," "Better Off," "Train-a-Coming"

Rating (out of five): 4