There are few more stigmatized genres in art than fantasy. Airbrushings of buxom valkyries heaving halberds take up no space at MOMA. "Beastmaster" failed to garner Mark Singer a single Oscar nod. Wilt Chamberlain's tomahawk dunks come to most people's mind before his role as Bombata in "Conan the Destroyer." A simple method for avoiding small talk with the businessman squeezed into the seat next to you on flights is to hunch over a 900-page fantasy epic. Answer his inquisitions with, "Excuse me, but I'm reading 'Path of Daggers,' the eighth volume of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series." It works like garlic breath.

While we may occasionally enjoy an escape into Arrakis or Ringworld, they're hardly worlds worth living in. The Renaissance Faire is only open one week a year for a reason. Likewise, listening to Mary Timony's twelve-sided die and aromatic candle companion piece, Mountains, is like eating every meal at Medieval Times.

Timony weaves a sparse tapestry of piano, chiming electric guitar, bells, and gong-like percussion into castle-pop as two-dimensional as a Holy Roman triptych. Imagine a Gaul Liz Phair strumming in the 14th Century, exiled in ye olde Village of Guy. Musically, Mountains is an often dreamy departure. Timony's work with Polvo frontman Ash Bowie in Helium has evidently rubbed off.

With the magical wand of whammy attached to her guitar, she bends clean chords into melting diffractions, sounding much like Polvo's Eastern-influenced discursions from Exploded Drawing and Shapes on tasty songs like "The Bell," "Painted Horses," and "Valley of One Thousand Perfumes." It's a sound that's been missed since Polvo's demise. "Poison Moon" and "The Golden Fruit" pulse with tinny knocks of an echoing drum machine. It throbs with an anxiety-building pace, as if to say, "Blue Wizard, your lifeforce is running out!" Vibraphone and gooey analog organs drip from snapping drums and repetitious guitar plucking on the two-minute instrumental, "An-deluzion." Those're your highlights.

When Timony attempts "period" sounds with maudlin violin, chimes, lute, harpsichord, or whatever modern equivalent, the album falls into what I like to call the "laughable parts." The delicate pipes of pan make their inevitable appearance on "Tiger Rising." Timony never once looks up from her fantasy epic, constantly dancing around her maypole with ribbons of black and olive.

Yet it's the lyrics and vocal delivery that go down like 700-year-old salted ham. "Will you dance with me?/ The kind of dance in the iron shoes/ Into the dungeon," she begs on "Dungeon Dance." Sorry, I've... uh... got some... uh... jousting to do. The songwriting veres dangerously close to the intro Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge." "I walk through an everlasting pit/ By the mountain of fire and the fountain of spit," is better growled over some good old Norwegian death metal. Over plonking piano and handclaps, it just tickles. The lazy, forced vocals waver in similar fashion to those church hymns where it's evident they focused on writing the praising the Lord parts before the melody. Hearing a roomful of tongues trip over "give us our tresspasses" is enough to keep one home on Sunday. (Please excuse my narrow-minded allusions to Christian doctrine. Judeocentric readers should picture a temple full of weekend believers bellowing "Baruch atah Adonai.")

Still, if audacity counts, there's a strange allure to Mountains. It's certainly not the same tribute John Denver gave. Music should offer escapism in some form. But travelling to Timony's world is not a real trip. The voyage is more akin to a zoo. We watch for a few passing moments in our rush to the reptile house. We point and mock as our feelings shift from awe to pity to blithe. There, beyond the retaining cement moat, Mary sits strumming at the harp in velvet robes amongst gnarled trees filled with ravens. Mary, come back! Helium is a band, not an inhalant!

-Brent DiCrescenzo