Don’t worry if you have a hard time describing Salivating for Symbiosis, the second full-length album from Bowling Green, Ky.- based Morning Teleportation, with a simple genre descriptor. Keyboardist Travis Goodwin struggles to put a name to it, too.

“It’s genre-jumping,” Goodwin says. “It’s similar to indie rock/ psych rock—it’s hard to put a finger on it.”

On the new record, the group’s second for Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse’s label Glacial Pace Recordings, Morning Teleportation’s songs rarely crack the four-minute mark. But the range of the record is expansive, pivoting from AM Gold-inflected folk on opener “Rise and Fall” to the monstrous rock of “Rocks Gears Desert Truckin’” to the chiming power pop of “Turning the Time.” Like Goodwin suggests, it’s “slash” rock, eager to indulge every melodic possibility, from prog pomposity to driving indie pop, but it’s all held together by the roots-informed feel that the band grew up with in their native South.

“The rootsy vibe [definitely comes] from growing up in Kentucky,” says Goodwin, who often reminiscences about his annual pilgrimage to Bonnaroo for over a decade. “The family farm I stayed on growing up is four miles from Bill Monroe’s grave, so I was kind of always around that bluegrass/ newgrass scene.”

It was on that farm that the band held its first rehearsals in 2005, and Morning Teleportation grew into a live force through years of club dates. Eventually, Brock took notice and agreed to produce their 2011 debut Expanding Anyway, which was tracked over a brisk, two-week stint. However, their follow-up, which was recorded over a year and pondered over during the six-year gap separating the two albums, came at a much more leisurely pace.

“After the record came out, we were doing 200-300 dates a year,” Goodwin says. “It wore everybody out. We lost a couple members on the way which hurt. So we took our time.”

The crew moved back home to Kentucky from Portland, where they’d relocated and formed a close bond with neighbors like Portugal. The Man. Goodwin and group co-founder singer/ guitarist Tiger Merritt spent time woodshedding the new songs with more recent band recruits Joseph Jones and Alex Lindsey, further distilling and organizing their disparate musical influences. They ended up achieving the musical symbiosis hinted at by their album name

“We like so many kinds of music,” Goodwin says. “It’s not like we could just go with one.”