One thing you learn right off the bat at even the most beginner community college creative writing class is to write what you know. This is a lesson Mrs. Magician frontman Jacob Turnbloom has surely taken to heart. As evidenced in song titles like “I’m Gonna Hangout with the Lesbians Next Door and Take Acid” and “There Is No God,” the band’s debut full-length, Strange Heaven, was chock full of wryly expressed personal experience juxtaposed with knockout hooks and just the right amount of rambunctious git-up.

Having also released a handful of singles in limited quantities as well, Mrs. Magician has assembled a collection of B-sides for this pragmatically titled record. Here too, Mr. Turnbloom and company displays the same knacks as on the debut, if only to a somewhat lesser extent. Leadoff track “Despicable Things,” however, could just as well be an A-side, with Turnbloom lamenting all the horrible acts he’s committed just to please his paramour over a reverb-washed guitar and big backbeat. “Guys in Cooler Bands” utilizes a similar formula, only this time Turnbloom tells some young thing off: “Bitch, you don’t have to call me names… You should focus on yourself and why you sleep around with every asshole in this town.” Perhaps most obviously autobiographical, though, is “I Hate Tour,” where our hero sings, “We played a shitty show for no one at the House of Rock N Roll.”

Of course, comprised of 17 tracks and compiled from various records, B-Sides (Thrill Me Records) can’t be expected to have the tight cohesion of Strange Heaven. But even so, the connected tributaries of Turnbloom’s stream of consciousness keep the record from seeming disjointed—even during Mrs. Magician’s most atypical moments (“Always a Bridesmaid,” “Sleep Running”)—while the band’s inherent charms ensure that these flipsides are worth hearing.