Granted, Califone have a distinctive sound that they mine over and over again. Until now though, extreme Califone fanboy that I am, that sound has never urged me to fear they're getting reductive, to lay on them the equivalent of what CMG once said about some new Tool single: "Sounds like Tool, alright." That's because Califone usually cut their gems at different angles, each rough-hewn pop song a different sort of reconstructive or retrospective experiment.

But here Rutili sings in one of his standard cadences about God's hands and streetlights killing the stars over an acoustic guitar and banjo duo that idle out something I can barely differentiate from, say, the verses of Califone's own "Mean Little Seed." Then Rutili starts staggering his words and, surprise, an organ line helps the song to its climax. Last year's Roots and Crowns achieved transcendence by finding its makers' archetype; this song underachieves by finding the stereotype. With "Ladders" everything from the lyrics to the melody to the arrangement is resting on laurels and well-worn patterns -- to the point where the rest of Califone's discography could swallow this song whole and no one would ever know. It's just that superfluous. So, sigh, yeah. Sounds like Califone, alright.

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