Numbers have released an album, without much fanfare, almost every year since 2002. In 2005, they abandoned the palsied pop they were known for in the Bay Area, considered and discarded plans to move to New York, and even took a short hiatus. They're re-energized here on Now You Are This, but they seem even further away from their first incarnation than ever-- once a lo-fi garage outfit, they're now a band built on keyboards and repetition.

Past reviewers heard XTC; I hear more recent groups. Right off the bat, it's the Mae Shi ("New Life"), Dan Deacon ("Hey Hey Dream"), and the Rentals ("Kosmos Love"). But those artists alternate their layers of static and sheen in more interesting ways than Numbers seem capable of doing. Numbers' songs are all flat planes; no angles or gentle curves to trace your finger along. They substitute those layers of static and crunch for sophistication, but there's little left once the sounds themselves depart, which is not to say that "songcraft" should always underwrite the sonic, but it would be nice to hear something in the way of dynamics or, say, structure.