Art Brut is less a musical act than a literary one. The group's ragged garage pop is of secondary importance — mere table setting for lead yelper Eddie Argos' stream of quips, epigrams and in-jokes. On Art Brut's third album, Argos is in his usual form, waxing wittily about suspended adolescence, hangovers and, in "Slap Dash for No Cash," hack musicians: "Why is everyone trying to sound like...

On their '05 debut, these exuberant English people got big mileage out of a simple approach: lean and crude riff rock overlaid with Eddie Argos' half-spoken spiels about topics such as his little brother discovering rock & roll ("There's a noise in his head and he's out of control") and his own yearning to move to L.A. and drink Hennessy with Morrissey. No big changes for album two. It would be...