The contemporary crowning of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers have led to a brigade of block-rocking beats, each successive blast becoming louder, leaner, and meaner. Meanwhile, Pinback create a more laid-back blend of pop music, augmenting gentler acoustic sounds with contemporary technology. The result is rainy-day music for the next millennium. The catchy fingerpicking on "Hurley," bound with a simple snare and bass, recalls early Folk Implosion; all snowy sighs and melancholy melody, it's easily the disc's strongest track. A couple of cuts are so nonthreatening they recede into soft-rock background music, but the multi-instrumentalist duo Armistead Burwell Smith IV (formerly of Three Mile Pilot) and Rob Crow deliver a mostly satisfying bouquet of thoughtful, somewhat spooky electro-emo pop. --Jason Josephes