Luna

Dean Wareham and his band of New York guitar aesthetes have perfected one of indie rock's slinkiest, sexiest sounds. For sheer sonic pleasure, few bands can match Luna's languid, decadently ethereal pulse, and Wareham's limpid voice adds the right touch of wit. Everyone expected him to fall on his face after the demise of Galaxie 500, but Lunapark was an energy jolt -- tight, funny songs detailing breakups ("Slash Your Tires"), crushes ("I Want Everything"), innocence ("I Can't Wait"), and experience ("Slide"), kissing off his professional adolescent-depressive past with the album's memorable opening line, "You can never give the finger to the blind." Bewitched was even better, thanks to new guitarist Sean Eden, who joined Wareham for the sun-dazed twin-guitar flurries of "Tiger Lily" and "Great Jones Street."

But Luna really got it together in the scandalously beautiful guitar ballads of Penthouse, one of those rare albums that can stand up to literally hundreds of listens over the years. Wareham spends the album plumbing his foolish heart in the back of a New York cab, going home alone after yet another night of fancy drinks and lucky toasts. "Chinatown," "Moon Palace," and "23 Minutes in Brussels" have the vinegary guitar burn of classic downtown bands like the Velvets and Television, but with a light touch that just makes the riffs more seductive. Wareham purrs sly one-liners about urban romance ("It's no fun reading fortune cookies to yourself") but the music celebrates the pleasures of being too young, too rich, too pretty, and too single, shopping for true love while getting lost in Chinatown.

Pup Tent was more of a mood piece, meandering sweetly in "Pup Tent," "Beggar's Bliss," and "Tracy I Love You." Wareham continues his eccentric pop-culture fascinations -- Penthouse was surely the first rock album ever to begin and end with songs named after Faye Dunaway movies -- but whether he's pretending to be Ernest Borgnine in a great movie ("Whispers") or Willem Dafoe in a bad one ("Bobby Peru"), he still sounds like the pathetic romantic obsessive he is. Unfortunately, Luna still couldn't sell any records, and The Days of Our Nights sounded listless, with one ace Joy Division rip ("Math Whiz") and a lame Guns n' Roses cover ("Sweet Child o' Mine") that failed to earn a reprieve from the major-label ax. Romantica was a welcome return: "Lovedust," "Black Postcards," and "Renee Is Crying" are among Luna's loveliest songs, nicking lyrics from Nabokov and Berryman, with "1995" an appropriately snide farewell to the first golden era. Always a great live band, Luna finally released the chakra-clearing concert album it had in it, Luna Live!, which had plenty of guitar jams and the Galaxie 500 classic "4th of July." Luna keeps releasing fans-only EPs of covers and outtakes; the best is 1995's Bonnie and Clyde, which has two versions of the Serge Gainsbourg title track with Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier (originally on Penthouse), a "Chinatown" remix, and a Talking Heads cover ("Thank You for Sending Me an Angel"). The soundtrack of the terrible 1996 movie I Shot Andy Warhol has Luna's hilarious version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch." Dean Wareham and bassist/paramour Britta Phillips teamed up for the duo side project L'Avventurra, which featured sincere versions of the Silver Jews' "Random Rules" and Madonna's "I Deserve It," as well as an ace new song, "Ginger Snaps." (ROB SHEFFIELD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide