The Delgados - Universal Audio (2004)

On Universal Audio, The Delgados have run from their past couple of albums. 2002's Hate flourished under the 70s-lite grandeur of producer Dave Fridmann, who positioned lead singers Alun Woodward and Emma Pollock as a modern-day Carpenters. The Delgados and Fridmann had dabbled with big set pieces in the past, but those were just diversions compared to their work on Hate, on which coursing melodies are buoyed by orchestration and every bold gesture has an even bolder swell to carry it.

In a smaller way, Universal Audio sounds just as dramatic. On the face of it, The Delgados have recorded a stripped-down pop record, all guitar singles and piano ballads. But the album isn't "raw" so much as "just right." And although the record's generic and misleading first single, "Everybody Come Down", promises an album of buzzing guitar pop, The Delgados are actually more troubled and complex than ever.

With fewer instruments to fight against, Pollock all but steals the show. Where Hate projected her into a 50s hologram, this time her voice is powerfully bare and introspective. Pollock opens the album with the defiant stand and unblinking guitars of "I Fought the Angels", but from there she's rocked and challenged, nearly surrendering on "Come Undone", then recovering with the gentle lilt of "Sink or Swim". The songs on which she takes lead vocals serve as a touching slideshow of the doubts that underlie her sweet, haunted voice.

By contrast, Woodward's turns on the mic are bold and unflappable, and as such, his approach seems at odds with Pollock's. While the late-era XTC knock-off "Bits of Bone" sets up the gloom of "The City Consumes Us", there's an uneasy jolt to the Olympic fanfare of "Girls of Valour". Pollock follows that track with "Keep on Breathing" like a nagging mother. The sequencing of happy-to-sad isn't as disconcerting as the way each voice takes a side: Pollock sees the grim possibilities that Woodward refuses to acknowledge. "Let's go out and fight forever!" he declares; "Watch how this city destroys us," she moans. "This is how it feels to drown," Pollock gasps; Woodward suggests, "Bang a gong!"

That disconnect confirms the suspicion that this is an album of singles. But even if Hate stands as their most visionary statement, Universal Audio has a subtler strength. As a result, its few moments of resolution-- such as when, on "Girls of Valour", Woodward unleashes Beach Boys harmonies on the chorus only to have Pollock slip in beside him-- hit that much harder. Her interjection simultaneously pulls him down to earth and tosses him back in the air, feeding him the poignancy that makes his confidence believable.