Record Rack

In a year that saw the resurgence of Burt Bacharach and a swing revival, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find this upstate New York quintet trading in the arty, psychedelic clangor of its previous albums for a kinder, gentler approach that draws on classic pop from Tin Pan Alley to Carnaby Street. But even in its reduced-acid incarnation, the music is no less trippy.

The opening track, “Holes,” sets the tone with waves of dreamy strings and orchestral gusts threaded with Jonathan Donahue’s high, thin vocals and the whimsical warbling of a musical saw. Sometimes the opulent arrangements coalesce into concrete songs, other times they simply drift, tuneful without settling into a tune. “Pick Up if You’re There” is as unresolved as an unanswered phone, and “Endlessly” floats over rippling pizzicato strings, softly anchored by a familiar melodic phrase from “Silent Night.” On rockier ground, “Opus 40” unfurls like a dark sequel to the Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden,” and “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” closes the album on a reassuringly down-to-earth note.

Mercury Rev may have changed its tune, but the thrust of its music is still the same; as artful and idiosyncratic as ever.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.

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* Excerpts from these and other recent releases are available on The Times’ World Wide Web site. Point your browser to: http://161.35.110.226/soundclips