Sunday will be anything but relaxed if you're anywhere near downtown, with two big shows going head to head within a couple blocks of each other.

Over at Fishlips, popular Santa Barbara reggae rock quintet Iration will be headlining a full bill with guests Mike Pinto, The Hold Up and Pacific Dub.

Not another Sublime clone, Iration works outside the confines of two-chord reggae with some pop aesthetics. All friends originally from the Hawaiian Islands, they formed in 2004 after arriving separately two years earlier to attend college in the Santa Barbara area. Starting in the fertile college party scene of nearby Isla Vista, their grassroots popularity has helped them score some major gigs, including a killer spot on the Cypress Hill Smokeout and other major festivals.

Now with two full-length albums under their collective belts, including their latest EP, "Fresh Grounds," Iration guitarist and vocalist Micah Pueschel says standing out beyond the pack has always been one of their creative objectives.

"We've always tried to make a point to not sound like Sublime and a lot of other bands like that," said Pueschel. "When we started, we were strictly a roots reggae band playing stuff like Bob Marley and Black Uhuru, not the happy kind of stuff. We're not Rastafarians or Jamaican. We're from Hawaii and wanted to make music that was real to us. But, really, none of us knew how to play our instruments when we first started," he added, laughing.

The band consists of Adam Taylor, bass; Cayson Peterson, keyboards; Joseph Dickens, drums; and Kai Rediske, vocals and percussion. The boys kicked off a fan-raising campaign, touring away from their coastal surroundings after making regular appearances at every backyard party from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.

"There's pockets of music fans everywhere," he said referring to the hippie types they found themselves playing for in some of the nation's more remote areas, where beachcombing is not part of daily life.

"A lot of it has to do with bands like Slightly Stoopid and 311. They play to thousands and helped grow those markets before we came through."

Of "Fresh Grounds," Pueschel says the EP's five tracks are a departure from their earlier, more conventional reggae-sounding works, from the ska-rock of "Can't Wait" to the acoustic beauty of "No Letter."

"Our last record, 'Time Bomb,' was very produced with a lot of synthesizers," he said. "With this record we wanted to make it more organic sounding -- you can hear the room. We used a lot of older instruments like a B3 organ and Fender Rhodes. We kept the elements of reggae, but we want to take the style to a different place. There's a pop sensibility to what we do now. We keep it pretty concise, without getting into five- to six-minute jams."

Still releasing music on their own label, 3 Prong Records, Pueschel says the band doesn't plan on changing their independent tune anytime soon.

"We built this thing on our own merits without any major label help or money. It was just pure hard work, touring, blood, sweat and tears."

Tickets for Sunday's show are $10 and available at Fishlips or vallitix.com. Showtime is 7 p.m. For more information call 324-2557.