Album Review: Rendezvous by Luna

For a band whose seventh album will be their last, Luna still sound as if they could go on forever, making the same limited but lovely palette seem fresh. Their sound is somewhere between the primal, nonchalant rock'n'roll of the Velvet Underground and Television at their least baroque and most melodic. Dean Wareham's lyrics have the rare knack of seeming both silly and profound, and his songs have a pervading sense of - if not quite melancholy - then a kind of wry, sensual reverie.

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On their seventh and final -- according to Dean Wareham -- collection of two-chord anthems featuring languid social observations and quietly perverse come-ons, dream pop veterans Luna do little to cement their handprints in rock & roll history. Rendezvous couldn't be more anticlimactic, but the Galaxie 500 spinoff was never about exclamation points. Recorded live in the studio, Wareham and Sean Eden's hypnotic guitar playing resonates deeper than on previous outings, ably complementing the singer's wry, bohemian non sequiturs, but even standout tracks like the rollicking "Speedbumps," the wistful "Still at Home," and the lush "Broken Chair" -- the latter expounding on the group's recent forays into alt-country -- seem destined to fall off the disc itself, climb out of the window, and hitch a ride back to their creator.

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It should come as no surprise that Rendezvous, Luna’s seventh and final studio album, varies little from their past few efforts. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Dean Wareham knows what he does best, and he’s clearly not afraid to stick to a winning formula. Wareham’s tendency to stay in his comfort zone, however, presents a paradox that finds its fullest expression on Rendezvous: The very nonchalance and sense of effortlessness that gives the album such charm simultaneously threatens to render it vapid and disposable.

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