First, the bad news: The opening track, "Dub Love Letter," is about as pleasant as a barium enema. There are also two tracks on here called "This World is Not My Home" and "I Can't Live in This World Anymore." Many of the tracks forsake the promise of sparse, dark folk music they made with their first release, Livonia. Too much Stereo, not enough Lab.

Now, the good news: Stars On E.S.P. still manages to be a pretty good album. Beach Boys fans will go apeshit over the joyous blasphemy of "Universal Frequencies," an inverted rip-off of "Good Vibrations." Listening to the two back to back will have your head swimming. What we lose in Livonia-esque static we gain in a new soundscape that seems to be ruled by -- that's right -- Emperor Tomato Ketchup. That's not a bad thing at all. This is, after all, a collection of various home recordings made over a three year period, so you gotta take the good with the bad. Good wins over bad by about four songs.

-Jason Josephes