If you condensed Radiohead down to a single person you'd be left with Beck. The moniker of genius is sometimes too liberally bestowed, but even at it's most narrow definition Beck qualifies. The man continues to forge ahead even as he digresses. By which I mean that the songs on Mutations aren't new, they're a collection of previously unrecorded or unreleased songs from Mr. Hansen's backpages.

The title, Mutations, is perhaps a facetious misnomer. Because if anything, this is pure Beck, all but free from the techno hip-hop distortions that you are more familiar with and perhaps more fond of. Mutations has been described as a folk record, but this isn't true in any American sense of the term. If your folks live in Liverpool, perhaps this is folk music.

When you hear a song that sounds just like, say The Stones, there will always exist the debate as to whether the song (or songs) are a derivative knock-off, or if they are a loving tribute--shall we say homage. Mutations is definitely an exercise in name that influence but the resemblances are so strong that there's no question that they are intentional. You'll first catch flashbacks to Revolver/Rubber Soul era Beatles. Then it morphs into a "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" Kinks mode, epitomized by a song called "Bottle of Blues" that I'm still not convinced isn't Ray Davies.

On the Western side of the pond you'll catch a taste of Neil Young here and Willie Nelson there--and a dash of Tom Waits for good measure--but this is an album that unabashedly basks in the fog-filtered light of British pop sensibilities. To which, I raise a toast to everyone's favorite Loser . . . good show old chap. There's nothing new under the sun, and Beck has taken this wealth of ripe material and recycled it into something that we can fall in love with all over again. All hale the Fab One.