Hell Yes

#5: Beck - Guero. I like to think of Guero as the equivalent of a major league pitcher who's been in the game for a few years: you know they've only got a certain repertoire to work with, but they have such control that they're just as likely to jam you up with something you didn't see coming.

Guero is something like that. After the rather radical departure of Sea Change (which I also picked up recently and really enjoyed), Mr. Hansen went back to his bread and butter for this one: plundering music from disparate genres, crafting lyrics that generally make little to know sense, and gluing it together with a healthy helping of hip-hop.

It works. The album is remarkably solid through the vast majority of its running time, and there are a number of high points, including the insistent "Hell Yes," the catchy "Girl," and the slower "Missing."

None of it really transcends his prior work, but I'll gladly take this over an untold number of other albums that came out in '05.