Twin Peaks are inviting some lofty comparisons for their second album. The band’s name is a reference to the television series and movie created by disturbingly iconoclastic director David Lynch; the cover of the album, “Wild Onion,” with its band lineup portrait dramatized with chiaroscuro and its title splashed to the foreground in a blocky, caveman typeface, mimics that of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 record “Aftermath”; and the song title “Sloop Jay D” readily evokes “Sloop John B,” a hit single from the Beach Boys’ monumental 1966 release “Pet Sounds.”

Deliberate or not, three direct connections to three singular talents comprise a potentially ostentatious move, especially for a foursome of 19-year olds. But after listening to the 16 songs presented here, it’s no stretch to declare that these guys have earned the right to a little bravado. If anything, it’s gonna take a handful more analogies to convey the diversity and quality of Twin Peaks’ sound.

For a bunch of born-and-bred Chicagoans, they sound British Invasion as all get out. Especially on tracks like “Mirror of Time,” which opens like a piece from the soundtrack to Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” with a mellow array of strings, flute and other assorted pastoral sounds before exploding into a shimmering wash of bouncily strummed guitar and determinedly happy vocal harmonies.

Bubbling brooks of simple, jangly, Kinks-style riffs tote along songs like “Ordinary People” and “Making Breakfast”; the former’s “ooh ooh” chorus is vaguely reminiscent of the similarly soothing refrain in “Every Night,” Paul McCartney’s 1970 love poem to his wife Linda.

Some of the most interesting moments from “Wild Onion” are its most temporally fleeting, coming during the combined three minutes of “Strange World,” a self-contained diorama of subtle synth oscillations and ethereal harmonies, and its even-better coda “Stranger World,” in which a tenor sax kanoodles its way in and out of a stardust haze of piercing, Syd-Barrett-era-Pink Floyd-inspired guitar and unflinching Krautrock-motorik-esque hi-hat strikes.

In general, Twin Peaks are more enjoyable when they allow themselves to stretch out and be mellow. “Fade Away” strives for the raw power and visceral energy of the Ramones’ patented no-holds-barred attack with its jagged, nerve-grating riff, and the vocals on album opener “I Found a New Way” alternate between David Johansen’s sleaze-itude and Tom Petty’s longing in the verses and chorus, respectively.

But the majority of the album’s faster tracks tend towards undifferentiated noise. Amplifier tubes don’t always equal amplified ‘tude, and the diminishing marginal returns of the volume knob are on full display in the chaos of “Strawberry Smoothie” and the aforementioned “Sloop Jay D.”