Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are a 10-piece L.A. jug band who tour in an old Greyhound bus, pose for publicity photos on what looks like a communal farm circa 1969 and sing jangling folk-rock songs with lyrics like "Hot and heavy/Pumpkin pie/Chocolate candy/Jesus Christ." The big, windy music is skillfully written and arranged — songs like "40 Day Dream" and the eerie "Home" build to rousing singalongs — and frontman Alex Ebert has an appealingly raggedy voice. But the group's attempts to evoke Age of Aquarius utopianism are suffocated by self-consciousness; the record feels like an art-college thesis.

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JODY ROSEN

(Posted: Jul 13, 2009)