The Dream Syndicate - The Universe InsideWhen one thinks of the Dream Syndicate, its not just the wild abandon with which singer guitarist Steve Wynn, drummer Dennis Duck, bassist Mark Walton, and lead guitarist Jason Victor perform its the carefully constructed songwriting of Wynn that comes to mind. By now every rock critic in the country has predetermined who he or she feels Wynn reminds them of and what they think of that style of songs. This time, dont! Which brings us to The Universe

' Tortoise's first studio album in nearly seven years

The song Rilkean Heart was a homage to Jeff Buckley

or method of seeing what each member could cough up

Grid Of Points is a set of songs for piano and voice

announcing the midi revolution that was to come before things get funkier on Side Two starting with Ryuichi Sakamoto's superb up-tempo Disco instrumental ‘Elastic Dummy’ featuring soulful strings and horns with solos by Sakamoto and guitarist Tsunehide Matsuki

so some of the longer songs like "Maniac" and "3D Time" veer off into what sounds like a thug's version of prog rock

Fripp and Eno - to their eternal credit - were too busy working as musicians to ever 'milk it' in that sense

heavy weight

is Martin Newell‰۪s own ‰Û÷producers cut‰۪ of oddities

previous studio albums never had the cohesion and sense of purpose as Technique

engagingly catchy

Primal Scream