With two weeks allotted to record their second album, "Hope and Adams," at Tarbox Road Studios in upstate New York, there wasn't a lot of time for Wheat [ tickets ] to be precious about the recording process. Luckily, the Boston foursome are hardly the precious types, and actually embraced the imperfections and accidents that helped shape their 14-song sophomore effort.

According to singer/guitarist Scott Levesque, ''A lot of times we let things decide what they are and what they're going to be. You find you don't have as much control over it as you thought, and you don't want to control it. You don't want to tie up every loose end,'' Levesque said. ''If you don't allow mistakes to somewhat dictate what you're doing, you'll never get beyond the original thought.''

Levesque, guitarist Ricky Brennan, drummer Brendan Harney and newcomer bassist Kevin Camarce all acknowledged that producer Dave Fridmann's (Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips) quick translations of recording ideas into practical musical parts helped to fit the production into the slender time slot provided. A heavy January snowfall that made impossible any fun under the bright lights of Cassadaga, NY, didn't hurt either.

Scheduled for release Oct. 12, Wheat's second effort adds atmospheric touches to instantly memorable melodies. The band even uses a dance beat to get the party started in ''Off The Pedestal,'' which in retrospect, the band agrees is representative of the direction the foursome are currently heading.

''We've really fallen more in love with groove, a naive sort of groove,'' Brennan said. ''...Hope and Adams' is already behind us and what we're playing now and demo-ing is sort of like 'Off the Pedestal.'''

Although song titles such as ''And Someone With Strengths'' and ''More Than You'll Ever Know'' suggest a serious outlook, Wheat's sense of humor shines through in songs like ''San Diego,'' which sounds like a serious love song, but is undermined by video-game style squeaks and squeals throughout and acidly ironic lyrics such as ''Your love is like a chemical plant.''

''Sometimes people take our stuff very seriously,'' Brennan said. ''We'd hate to be sort of a one-liner band, but there is tongue-in-cheek humor. We entertain ourselves with humor when we're on the road or wherever. That's how we get around without killing each other. Less John Candy, more Dr. Strangelove.''