Is this better than Mass Romantic? It's close... Pure indie-pop-rock gold. Clever lyrics, memorable hooks and melodies, and upbeat tone. How can you not like it?

To me this was the band reaching its peak. When I first heard Use It on the radio it was one of those all-too-rare moments of hearing a band creating a sound that was at once new yet accessible, somewhat experimental yet very self-assured. The album is sometimes spotty, yet ridiculously infectious in the main.

another ultra-catchy album where most songs have choruses to spare. I'll go over the highlights, "use it", "the bleeding heart show", "sing me spanish techno" and "star bodies", first. "use it" musically feels in perpetual, hip flux, offering "heads down thumbs up / two sips from the cup of human kindness / and im shit faced, just laid to waste" and "you had to send a wrecking crew after me / i cant walk right". (i love hearing neko talk dirty -- "use it tonight", indeed.) Playful piano and drumwork too. That's followed by "the bleeding heart show", sort-of-cryptic lyrics for the porn. "I leapt across three or four beds into your arms / Where I had hidden myself somewhere in your charm / Our golden handshake has been smashed into this shape. / It's taken magic to a primitive new place / Watch 'em run, although it's the minimum, heroic ", in a song (with fine backing neko vox) that builds to a bleeding heart climax with A.C. ("we have arrived") and neko ("too late to play the bleeding heart show") dueling above the "hey la"'s. "sing me spanish techno" might be my favorite though, and it's killer-seductive chorus (with neko!), "Traveling at godspeed over the hills and trails / I have refused my call pushin' my lazy sails / Into the blue flame I want to crash here right now / The hourglass spills its sand if only to punish you" plus second chorus "listening too long to one song / sing me spanish techno". haha. "star bodies" is another neko vs. A.C. vocal duel, which neko wins at one of the choruses singing "for you there's not any warning / and love is 5 in the morning " besting A.C.'s introducing "there's a shake with the shock / and a gift off with them / they carry the dust of the failing wisdom " and following side-chorus-chorus "now take me to where your sister lives " (?). As i've said before, you need to hear this for yourself to know how completely catchy these songs are. (And if you don't, neko won't have sex with you.) Elsewhere, opener "twin cinemas" offers fuzzed-out guitar around the bridge and stop-start verses. Neko takes lead (mrrrrrOWWW) on "the bones of an idol" AND "these are the fables" ("You hear the voice rise / In one wave /And crash on your doorstep / Making the circle here perfect, complete"). "jackie, dressed in cobras" is bejar at his most playful. "stacked crooked" turns into a rousing closer. If you listen close, you'll notice the tempos aren't as energetic as the first two albums.

i cruised to this for 2 months straight. only album in the car