Giving the rapping a rest, four-chord boppers "Gamma Ray" and "Youthless" stick out as the most single-friendly on a CD short and snappy enough to rarely slog. Chan Marshall sings on the unison choruses of "Orphans" and "Walls", seemingly more for camaraderie's sake than to assert herself into the mix, much more buried than, say, Will Oldham's Sun Kil Moon backups earlier this year. Danger Mouse throws small spanners into the works, such as the latter song's tinny two-bar snare loop; key contribution "Replica" has a dizzy hiccup of a drum sample as imbalanced as The Odd Couple's best beat or two.
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Long the flagship band (or at least the best-known) of the Park The Van roster, Dr. Dog may be wild-eyed, bearded and keyboard-centred like fellow Philadelphians Man Man, but with a gruffness much more subdued, popping up more in the Let It Be-like howls of co-lead singer Toby Leaman than any sort of Waits-y circus barks. Confident from the potentially hubristic title on down, co-founder Scott McMicken even goes so far as to call Fate "the first true Dr. Dog record"; his chirpier vocal turns, perfected on mid-album ballad "From", offset Leaman's brazen wails, best heard on "Army Of Ancients".]]>
