Pinback
The contemporary crowning of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers have led to a brigade of block-rocking beats, each successive blast becoming  louder, leaner, and meaner.  Meanwhile, Pinback create a more laid-back  blend of pop music, augmenting gentler acoustic sounds with contemporary  technology.  The result is rainy-day music for the next millennium.  The catchy fingerpicking  on "Hurley," bound with a simple snare and bass, recalls earlyFolk Implosion; all snowy sighs and melancholy melody, it's easily the  disc's strongest track.  A couple of cuts are so nonthreatening they recede into soft-rock background music, but the multi-instrumentalist duo Armistead Burwell Smith IV (formerly ofThree Mile Pilot) and Rob  Crow deliver a mostly satisfying bouquet of thoughtful, somewhat spooky  electro-emo pop.--Jason Josephes