Random Spirit Lover

Album Review

Vocalist/keyboardist/mad pop scientist Spencer Krug made the jump from California (Absolutely Kosher) to the Midwest (Indiana-based Jagjaguwar) for 2007's Random Spirit Lover, a cacophonous slab of 12 tracks that bleed into each other like a dismembered, dystopian version of the Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin. The occasional Frog Eyes and full-time Wolf Parade member's third foray into the solo world feels a lot less like a foray and more like a firm commitment. Like Frog Eyes, Krug weaves fractured, complex, cacophonous pop songs glued together by a distinct love for melody, but where Frog Eyes wants to violate every part of your body, Sunset Rubdown wants you to stick around and watch the carnage, not be a part of it. Random Spirit Lover bristles with the same manic energy and odd beauty that made 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming so rich. Part lo-fi bedroom project and part hi-fi tribute to the excesses of '70s art rock, standout rockers like "Mending of the Gown," "Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days," and "Taming of the Hands That Came Back to Life" never stick around long enough to grow tiresome, as Krug keeps things economical. Fans of "Blackberry Way"-era Move, Berlin-era Bowie, late-period Of Montreal, and the Danielson Famile will eat this up like the candy it is.