Mercury

Leave it to to make their major-label bow with the most perversely idiosyncratic record in their catalog. Produced with eccentric panache by , spotlights the band at their darkest and most eclectic, favoring odd rhythms, bizarre effects, and extreme arrangements ranging from the synthetic lounge grandeur of the worshipful to the swirling sonic maelstrom of the fatalistic Under the cover of defense-mechanism titles like and paints some of his bleakest portraits to date; even the most superficially upbeat tracks -- -- are relentlessly grim at their core. A triumph of abject misery. ~ Jason Ankeny