The Baltimore mischief-maker's last album, America, was an audacious, ambitious affair, complete with four smartly executed orchestral portraits. However, the Deacon who is showboating on Gliss Riffer will be much more familiar to fans of the giddy heights reached on his Spiderman of the Rings a few years back. Besides rediscovering the fun factor which dictated that album's walk on the wild side, the new album sees Deacon finding a path between the shapes he was flexing last time and the musical width and depth of old. The result is an album of buzzy pop which squelches, squawks and squeals in great infectious waves. Tracks such as When I Was Done Dying are full of super-kinetic flights of imagination, while there's also room for more idiosyncratically atmospheric derring-do such as Meme Generator. dandeacon.com