Pitchfork

It's easy to dismiss the Ladybug Transistor as just another prototypically sweet-faced, baroque-inclined indie pop ensemble-- or, if you're feeling charitable, an indie pop ensemble with unusually delicate arrangements and impressive longevity. But the band's careful mastery of pop precision and 60s bubblegum swells demands a far more thorough assessment (even if it winds up leading to an inevitable Neil-Diamond-by-way-of-Crooked-Fingers comparison). Since their 1996 debut, Marlborough Farms, The Ladybug Transistor have wed lush, rolling melodies to oddly somber lyrics, folding in a barnyard full of sounds (baritone harmonica, keyboards, flute, organs, flitting chamber-pop strings, horns, 12-string guitar, and the soft, sliding background vocals of keyboardist Sasha Bell) and crafting a perfectly orchestrated whole.

Frontman Gary Olsen's voice-- a deep, steady warble as smooth as wet, worn pebbles, and just as cold and gray-- is so expertly controlled that it often borders on unnerving. But he'll switch gears unexpectedly, too, as easily forcing out a jolly, disembodied coo, taunting and sinister, the perfect, chuckling counterpoint to whatever shit in your universe is currently falling apart. Like the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, Olsen's lauded for his songwriting prowess more often than his creepy pipes, but the remnants of both are guaranteed to stick around long after the record has been shelved.

It might seem odd that The Ladybug Transistor waited until their unceremonious fifth studio album to go all eponymous, but it's an appropriate concession given the circumstances: The Ladybug Transistor, recorded in Tucson last spring with producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Neko Case), is the band's first album not recorded at Olsen's Brooklyn-based Malborough Farms studio. The relocation, however, hasn't had much of an impact on their sound: their influences (see: The Left Banke, The Smiths) and their collaborative spirit remain at the fore, with noteworthy contributions from Calexico's Paul Niehaus (on pedal steel) and Lambchop's Dennis Cronin (trumpet).

Opener "These Days in Flames" pits a textured, upbeat piano and guitar melody against some unpredictably explicit laments: "Every time it rains/ I'm running to my window/ To stare out at the same thing/ And cry." "3 = Wild" is a bit more forthcoming with its melancholy-- its slow, meandering vocal melody ("Joked about the burns on your neck/ Laughed, our bodies in smoke") drift in and out of pedal steel whines and shivering tambourines. Much like Olsen's vocals, the instrumentation here is always impeccably rendered, each shift meticulously planned, every component expertly placed, each note purred in pitch-perfect harmony.

Consequently, The Ladybug Transistor might initially seem disarmingly untouchable here, their unfaltering movements too tweaked and controlled to ever be entirely accessible to folks in plain clothes. But there's an undercurrent of darkness on this record-- particularly in Olsen's on-the-verge voice and lyrics-- that ultimately prevents the band from ever wheeling too far out of reach.