Rendezvous

by James Christopher MongerOn 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. There's an air of indifference throughout the record that keeps otherwise excellent tracks like "Malibu Love Nest," with its sly, late-night debauchery, grounded in the superficial. Wareham, whose 2002 collaboration L'Avventura with bassist/singer Britta Phillips remains a career high point, continues to mine the Velvet Underground, but his demeanor throughout Rendezvous feels more reserved than reverent, resulting in a string of songs that, like Luna, hints at greatness but never seems to choose the fork in the road that might take them there.