You’ve got to hand it to Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse.  Anything the man touches is gold, and with one of the most impressive resumes in contemporary pop music (Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley, Beck, the Good the Bad and the Queen, to name a few) he has become a hugely influential voice in the business.  For his most recent effort he has teamed up with The Shins front-man James Mercer, and the results are incredibly satisfying. 

            The album is full of Mercer’s signature melodies that we all know and love.  Paired with Burton’s excursions into atmospheric synth-pop blips, stripped down hip hop rhythms, and grand orchestral ensembles, those melodies seem to have reached their full potential, transcending any restrictions Mercer may feel using his familiar tools.  Remaining consistent throughout, the album offers an equal balance between multi-layered electronic arrangements and unadorned acoustic instrumentation. 

            Having worked with Damon Albarn on two separate projects, however, the influence of the mastermind behind Blur, Gorillaz, and the Good the Bad and the Queen seems to have seeped well into Danger Mouse’s musical vocabulary.  This is apparently understood by Mercer, at times yielding to a manner of vocal hooks all too familiar to any Gorillaz fan.  That’s not to say that Mercer is imitating Albarn (despite the fact that I had to check the credits after hearing track 4, The Ghost Inside, to make sure Albarn hadn’t done guest vocals on it), but they wear the influence on their sleeve.

            Broken Bells succeeds in, once again, solidifying Burton’s already established genius, as well as shedding light on Mercer’s range and adaptability as purveyor of intelligent pop chantey’s.  Not once does Burton delve into over-production.  He’s a master of knowing when to indulge and when to strip it bare, producing an album that is no less than dazzling, to say the least. 

(Kudo’s to Jacob Escobedo for his work on the art layout and design for the album.  It’s a perfect compliment to the music.)