Letters From a Witch

Gringo turns the Circus Devils aesthetic on its head. On the band's past work, Todd Tobias (and occasionally his brother, Tim) has created music that is dark, challenging and dense. It seems to be a chore for Robert Pollard to find spots for his vocals, and while that set up has produced more than its share of happy accidents, it also has led to some incongruous melodies that don't fit very well.

With Gringo, however, the Tobias brothers have crafted songs that seem designed for vocals. There is air and space, a vein left open for Pollard. As such, the songs feel more like songs than noisy collages. It sounds great, but (and this comes from someone with a love/hate relationship with the band) it doesn't sound like the Circus Devils.

Regardless of what you call it or whether it fits, "Letters from a Witch" is a great song. The Tobiases come up with a great, slinky acoustic guitar riff and a little southwestern shuffling beat. Pollard delivers the perfect vocal, the result sounding like some sort of lost Lee Hazelwood track. It's some of the best pure singing he's done in the past couple of years, and the whole thing feels as if everyone was in the room from the first spark of inspiration until the final mixdown was completed.

Easy Baby

"Easy Baby" is the most unabashed, straight-forward pop song in the Circus Devils catalog. It's not even close, and the song could actually be more abashed and less straight-forward and still qualify for that title. Circus Devils is not known for its pop sound. It is known for its oft-abrasive and challenging rock. That's no slight; it's just the M.O. for the group, which finds Todd Tobias creating dense, sometimes cacophonic tunes and then seemingly challenging cohort Robert Pollard to find a way to graft a melody and lyric onto it. That has led to some epic failures and monumental wins.

The band -- and Pollard, of course -- are all about subverting expectations, however, so the appearance of a mostly acoustic, mostly accessible album was perhaps the most perplexing move of all. The album, Gringo, is certainly a refreshing blast. That said, nothing prepares the listener for "Easy Baby." Pollard is rarely this straight-forward, and Tobias, particularly under the Circus Devils banner, never is.

But Tobias came up with a swinging little guitar riff, built a driving drum beat under it to push the song along, and Pollard came through with one of his better melodies to give it a big hook. It's a winning combination, and yet further proof that just when you think you have Pollard pegged, he'll take a hard left turn and leave you scratching your head as it bobs along to the beat.