Uncanney Valley

For some indie-rock fans, the Dismemberment Plan have always been the band that got away: too noisy to win over bookish brainiacs, but too smart (and too subtly funny) to convert cool-kid cred dispensers. A decade after breaking up, DP find themselves firmly in step with our attention-disordered, hypernostalgic times. The endlessly hooky Valley veers from funk-furnished, thrashing tragicomedies ("Waiting") to springy eulogies for the past ("Daddy Was a Real Good Dancer," an upbeat downer if ever there was one). "It's always last call," Travis Morrison bemoans on the sighing, swirling "Invisible." Hopefully, this time they'll stay for a few extra rounds.