The Moonlight Butterfly

Perpetually saddled with misleading descriptors like "loungy" and "soft" by critics who have trouble listening beyond Sam Prekop's wispy vocals, The Sea and Cake have spent their lengthy career exploring a subtle but often fascinating musical tension. Just underneath the generally chill surface of The Moonlight Butterfly, the Chicago quartet are less placid than they might first appear. The delicate acoustic guitars and gentle electronic textures of the extended centerpiece "Inn Keeping" are kept from wafting away by the interplay between John McEntire's Neu!-style drum pulse and the steady whirr of an old-fashioned sequencer. Propulsive opener "Covers" builds one of the group's most immediate tunes on Eric Claridge's foregrounded melodic bass line and wavelike layers of keyboards, while the second half of the wistful "Lyric" features an extended African-style interlocking dual-guitar part and relatively conventional indiepop tunes like "Monday" and "Up On The North Shore" feature perfectly-deployed electric piano and slide guitar parts. Even the relatively out-of-place title track, an unapologetically krautrocky instrumental built on squelchy vintage synthesizer gurgles, sounds pristinely crafted. The Moonlight Butterfly will not change the mind of anyone left cold by The Sea and Cake's previous work, but it's impressive to hear a band well into its second decade together still exploring the nooks and crannies of its signature sound.