(Sub Pop)

www.subpop.com

Soft Airplane's most successful tracks sound like they were recorded at the River Styx-or maybe on the banks of  Chad VanGaalen's personal purgatory. "No one knows where we go when we're dead or when we're dreaming," he sings in a falsetto that seems to be straddling its own demise.

The former Calgary busker's third offering isn't immediately striking or even all that interesting. It takes a few listens to discover the spooky undertones that, once unturned, prove essential to the album's lasting impact. The first two and last four tracks could be pushed together to form one killer EP, but a string of songs bookmarked by "Willow Tree" and "City of Electric Light" are a bit uneven. It's not that they aren't good-no throwaway songs in this bunch-they just tend to detract from the album's overall flow.  This might not be a problem for iPod shuffle addicts, but for those who prefer to listen to a record from start to finish, tracks like "Cries of the Dead," "Phantom Anthills" and "Old Man + Sea" are brilliant in their own right, but fall flat in the grand scheme of things.

Airplane employs a cadre of old-school electronic gizmos and organic instruments to present an unsettling, scattershot portrait of universal suffering, confusion and longing. It's a thick pastiche of human emotion by one of Canada's coolest, most industrious tinkerers whose work is increasingly coming into focus.

Standout Tracks: "City of Electric Light," "Bones of Man" JAMIE GADETTE