Throughout the album, O'Rourke and Tweedy swap vocal duties, each bringing his own peculiar lilt to abstract lyrics like "If I sleep too much/ A good Chinese apple/ Shines to the touch/ Of my sleeve" (from the Tweedy-led "Chinese Apple"). The real action, unsurprisingly, is in the music, which swells and swirls with its players' restless whimsy. Garage rock's single-minded drone gives way to acoustic flights of finger-picking; taut power chords unfold over loose-limbed jazz acrobatics. Even the folksy, aforementioned "Chinese Apple," which begins with three minutes of melancholic acoustic plucking and Tweedy's gruff, intimate whisper, goes swimming in roiled waters, with whitecapped guitars consuming each other in an endless tumult. But beneath all the slack and rumple, precision reigns. Just listen to the feedback-guitar interplay that closes "Laminated Cat" -- every guitar string sings with an edge that's new-moon thin, and each electronic howl slices as neatly as a paper cut. There's no loose fur on this beast: It's as clean and close as the oiled, wiry back of a fox.
