Jennifer Gentle: The Midnight Room

On Jennifer Gentle's fourth full-length, the departure of co-founder and drummer Alessio Gastaldello has rendered the northern-Italian outfit into a one-man project. Not that followers will notice the change: The Midnight Room delivers more of the genuinely off-kilter psych-pop that marked the band's eight-year career, music off-kilter enough to make Jennifer Gentle an acquired taste for fans of Sub Pop's more mainstream breadwinners, like The Shins. Childlike vocals and pre-pop skiffle dynamics on the standout tracks "It's In Her Eyes" and "Quarter To Three" reveal Jennifer Gentle's most like-minded contemporary to be The Danielson Famile—minus the God-squad agenda or post-Elephant 6 influence—but the immediate feel brings to mind the first two Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, and the only solo effort of The Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson, 1969's Corky's Debt To His Father.