Avantgardedog

Eleven returned from a five-year hiatus (during which the band's leaders, Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider, produced and performed on Chris Cornell's Euphoria Morning, then joined Cornell on the ensuing tour) with the satisfying Avantgardedog. Taking the band into more esoteric and richly textured territory, the self-produced Avantgardedog tones down the behemoth guitars of its predecessors but expands the group's tonal palette with a wider array of acoustic and electric instrumentation and a greatly evolved production acumen. New drummer Greg Upchurch complements Eleven's highly articulate, prog-influenced instrumental attack with more detail than previous skinsman Jack Irons (who departed to join Pearl Jam in 1995), while ornate drum loops and other slices of electronica augment the album's rhythmic tapestries. As always, co-lead vocalists Johannes and Shneider use their rich pipes to deliver memorable hooks on "Cool Cruel Baby," "Verb," and especially "It's Okay," with its delightfully bouncy, Beatlesque vocal counterpoint. Elsewhere, the band's dark, brooding tendencies are more effective than ever, particularly on the album-closing "Watergun," the tense and exotic "Lucky One," and Shneider's beautiful, haunting "Strands of Rain." Eleven's curse is that its music — while focused and accessible — is simply too unusual to pigeonhole, and therefore doesn't fit into easy marketing categories; consequently, Eleven remains a highly cherished and well-kept secret to its fans.