Smog: Knock Knock

Bill "Smog" Callahan, purportedly for the purposes of attracting teenage fans, adorned his album cover with flashy photographs of lightning and an ugly wildcat. Regardless of his motives for doing so, that's indicative of Callahan's dry sense of humor, especially considering that there's nothing flashy or bombastic about Knock Knock's sweet, melancholy, decidedly nice music. Callahan is a formidable lyricist and pop musician, utilizing necessary checks and balances to keep him from sinking into a quagmire of depression or floating into pop preciousness. For example, rather than sounding maudlin or heavy-handed, the use of a children's chorus on "No Dancing" provides an effective countermeasure against the song's dark tone. "Held" is a muddy, sluggish dance-funk number that finds Callahan flatly intoning, "For the first time in my life / I let myself get held / Like a big old baby," a sentiment that's simultaneously lovely and ludicrous. Callahan possesses a love of sound for the sake of sound: Even the album's poppiest moments are resplendent with quirks, and "Sweet Treat" is more of a nice hazy mass than a pop song at all. Knock Knock doesn't explicitly let you know whether to laugh or cry, dance or daze. It's beautiful, even uplifting in parts, but you never feel uncomfortable laughing in the midst of it.