Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia

Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia signals a departure for the Dandy Warhols, a Portland, Oregon, quartet best known for its spaced-out Brit pop. The Dandies can still harmonize you into a trance, but they've replaced the dreamy drone of 1997's . . . The Dandy Warhols Come Down with more diverse atmospherics. On "Country Leaver," vocalist-guitarist Courtney Taylor drawls his way through an archetypal country backdrop – complete with whinnying horses; "Solid" and "Horse Pills" (no whinnying here) cover more abrasive, Velvet Underground-lined terrain. The cosmopolitan glam of "Shakin'" downshifts into the disenchanted indie rock of "Big Indian" and finally ends with the doleful harmonies and sweet, countrified resignation of "The Gospel." Coming from a band whose greatest hit was "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth," this album suggests that it's possible to be elegantly wasted for fifteen minutes and survive to eloquently tell the tale.