At the end of Modern Guilt is a song called "Volcano," in which Beck sings, "I've been drifting on this wave so long/I don't know if it's already crashed on the shore." Maybe more like stalled"crashed" implies friction, and friction has been missing from Beck's music for quite some time now. Those who loved Mellow Gold did so because the joins showed, and because Beck careened between pissed off and falling-down funny while writing lyrics that did that rarest of things: adopting a surrealistic tone without seeming forced. Odelay smoothed the edges, which was great unless you thought the edges were the point. Everything since has simply tilted the angle a little and re-buffed everything to yet another shine.

So you might wonder what is the purpose of an exercise like Modern Guilt, and you'd have every reason to. It's Beck's collaboration with Danger Mousethe pair's down-the-middle, cut-and-paste sensibilities are synchronized to the point that this sounds like it was a breeze to make. It's a breeze to listen to as well, but mainly because it wafts by without causing much change in room temperature. Sure, there are lots of neat touches: the compressed drums and snaking bass line of "Chemtrails," the paranoid groove of "Profanity Prayers"; he even gets credit for trying, on "Replica," to revive drum and bass (not well, but still). Still, for a guy who once came on as a total original, Beck has become the kind of artist whose albums can, with greater frequency, be summarized, "Sounds like the last one."