Mountain Battles

Their first album since 2002's "Title TK". By turns goofy, groovy, melancholy, strung-out, catchy, atmospheric, and at times, impossibly lovely, "Mountain Battles" underlines that Kim Deal is a songwriter and musician of rare intuition. Her songs move from offhand charm to emotional truth with casual grace, balancing scuffed-up noise against fraught silence; timeless structures against strange new shapes. And throughout is Kim's unique voice - languid, urgent, bruised, and beautiful. "Mountain Battles" captures all the bittersweet electricity of classic Breeders records like "Pod" and "Last Splash", and still manages to break new ground.