When you think about it, it's hardly a surprise that DEP don't sound the same anymore. There's hardly anyone left from the lineup that unleashed Calculating Infinity on the unsuspecting world. With the recent departure of berserk skinsman Chris Pennie, the new guy Gil Sharone had some Bozo the clown type shoes to fill, and he does that fine enough.

But if you've noticed, the band have sort of shifted away from orchestrating an atmosphere of audio dementia, separated from pure chaos by only the flimsiest of rules. Recently, they've been sidetracked by (among other things) doing almost faithful covers of songs by artists including Justin Timberlake. Them dogs be crazy! Or so they want us to think? The game is afoot.

Sure, on the new record, they've got the typical cacophony going on here and there, but the trend seems to be that which each album, they're getting more accessible to the general public ear. Miss Machine had the radio-ready Unretrofied (and if you push it, Phone Home and Setting Fire to Sleeping Giant would have passed muster too), and here we've got Black Bubblegum, Milk Lizard, Dead as History and Mouth of Ghosts. Straight-up songs! Verse, chorus, the whole shebang. I'm not complaining, it's some pretty funky shit. Only...if Greg Puciato's going to be singing as much as screaming, he should be getting a little more versatile with the vocal cords. The lung power's all there, but he sounds a bit flat now and then.

The direction they're headed is cool enough – I can see them eventually becoming all weird pop like Faith No More. Then again, every avante-garde outfit nowadays wants to be Faith No More or another one of Mike Patton's projects. Yes, so do I. And I'm not even avante-garde. Anyway, doubtful that they'll ever top Irony is a Dead Scene in my books, but by all means - keep trying, people. Hint: Ask Patton to guest again.



Year of release: 2007
Label: Relapse