Pedigree: members of Blue Man Group, June of 44, and Rex.

Disclosure, Part 1:

Brand my ass Uncool, but much like pickles and corndogs, and aniseed liquor before them, I never acquired a taste for June of 44. While I recognize that they were pretty original, not to mention tight beyond reproach, their scattered bits of brilliance were never enough to sustain my interest beyond the five-minute mark. Plus, there was that whole maritime theme. What the hell?

Disclosure, Part 2:

I spent three years living in New York and never once felt the slightest inclination to go see Blue Man Group. As their popularity festered and grew to plague scale, I came to seriously loathe the show posters for the group, pasted ubiquitously on every conceivable vertical surface around the city. Annoying as those were, playing captive audience to their subway advertisements was more repulsive still. I'd finally jettisoned my ill will for the Group, but their recent appearance in a deplorably lame Pentium commercial has roused the old rancor.

Good. The air is cleared and we can take a stroll through at all that the Letter E's new batch has to offer. During several listens, a few ideas sprang to mind.

No. 5ive Longplayer could make a knockout soundtrack to a seedier, updated version of Pac-Man, in which Pac-Man gobbles Quaaludes and Jello shots rather than power pellets, moves at a quarter the speed, and only thinks he sees ghosts. If you're not the video game sort, but find yourself in that pill-popping kind of mood, a couple tracks off No. 5 Long Player could tide you over nicely. After that, who knows? You might even be up for a round or two of Pac-Man.

Switching mediums, the Letter E's first full-length would make a nice, natural fit as the score to an art-house film shot entirely in time-lapse photography. Think The Secret Life of Daffodils. Or The March of Plaque: Gumward Ho! Or perhaps, Cirrus Clouds at Play.

As the field of Musical Therapy makes gains, and wins more respect from the mainstream medical establishment, it's only a matter of time before its more progressive practitioners get hold of No. 5ive Longplayer and put its boundless therapeutic potential to good use. I'm no expert myself, but I'd bet the band's steady, inoffensive, polyphonic, semi-proggish drone could be employed as a non-chemical anesthetic, as a safe substitute for anti-seizure medication, or perhaps as a way to keep coma patients regular. You know, like audio fiber. Really, who among us wouldn't readily welcome Bran-core as a new subgenre?

All that aside, forcing a June of 44 die-hard to justify this album's existence is far and away the best, most entertaining use for the Letter E's music. Not that there's anything especially obnoxious about No. 5 Long Player-- it won't make you angry or uncomfortable, and it shouldn't prompt you to send hate mail to the offices of Tiger Style. But this is one of the most surprisingly unremarkable and unmemorable albums released in years. I haven't come across anything this self-consciously "pretty" since junior high.

At times, the seven tracks attempt a jammy feel, but fail on that count, too. Everything about this album feels so sterile and predetermined that it's hard to believe it resulted from the collaboration of four separate beings, and not from the dark mind behind Muzak. To Bob Weston's credit, I can find no fault with his production. The product, however, could put the makers of hypnotist pendulums out of business. Proceed with care and black-ass pot of coffee.

-Camilo Arturo Leslie