What makes this Pere Ubu's best album? Easy. It rocks more steadily and directly than anything the band has done before, thus giving the sharpest focus yet to the wonderful weirdness of lead yelper and conceptualist David Thomas. But how is it that the Cleveland dada-punk outfit can be peaking a full thirteen years after its beginnings – and six years after its last album of new material? That's a bit tougher.

One reason is that this is not in truth a reunion album but rather the first effort by a new version of the band. The Ubu veterans – Thomas, synth player and saxophonist Allen Ravenstine, bassist Tony Maimone and drummer R. Scott Krauss – have been joined by percussionist Chris Cutler and guitarist Jim Jones. Cutler and especially Jones give the project a unique freshness.

But the glue and heart of the album is Thomas. Who else could not only write a song with lyrics that are just "George had a hat/But it wasn't where it wasn't at" but also make it sound like a love poem to humanity? And in the album's closing track, "We Have the Technology," he has come up with his best encapsulation of the Ubu gestalt thus far: "What a wonderful life if, darling/That moment/Might be found wherein we come unstuck completely/Flap A from Slot B/Slapping in the wind!" (RS 535)

STEVE HOCHMAN