Nope, ain't your dad's "Thunder Road". Drastic and injudicious, the cover sounds limp after these aging indie royals piss away the invitational spirit, preternatural passion, and everything else that makes "Thunder Road" the drive-home staple thirty years after its B-movie engines started roaring.

Now nobody expected a faithful rendition from the brainy prog-folk hybrid, but this six-and-a-half minute slithery slow-jam (?!) is about as sexy as a stack of pancakes. As he's wont to do, Oldham sucks the fatalistic ambiguities from Springsteen's anti-hero heroics. Words like "ghosts", "skeleton", and "scared" are embossed as the eventual triumph plays slave to the sketchy pursuit. But as the song trods along, it becomes clear that Springsteen's charred loneliness works much better as an undercurrent than a focus. Aside from an arch, Rush-ing synth line, Tortoise offer the same trickster chords and lulling rhythms that made their last album a redundant chore. She ain't a beauty, all right.