However, with the release of their 13th studio album, Robert Smith and Co. have finally made a record that people well past their prime brooding years can listen to in their cubicles without fielding co-workers' gentle queries as to whether they've taken their Prozac yet that day. Not to say that the band has forsaken their dank and seratonin-challenged roots. "Bloodflowers" navigates the same dark waters as 1982's stunningly bleak "Pornography" and the frostbitten 1989 epic "Disintegration," but seems to have set its course toward somewhat warmer shores—more likely to conjure emotion from a conversational lyric and a dizzy piano riff than the easy chill of a ragged howl and a tide of icy synth.

The Cure's best efforts in this vein have been intoxicating mixes of simple, blissful vocals and starkly plucked melodies on top of layers of cloudy atmosphere, and the opening track is one of their most successful such syntheses. The crashingly gorgeous "Out of This World" tickles giddy piano scales and a gentle, lyrical lament against a lope of blurred guitars, providing some of the most sublime musical moments in the band's two-decade history. While the rest of the album takes a slight turn for the sonically murkier, it is (with one or two exceptions) quite frankly less embarrassingly depressing than previous efforts. Gone are the ghosts, gray cats and bleak metaphors of past work, in favor of lyrics rooted much more firmly in the everyday exchange.

For the first half of the '90s, Boss Hog was everything hot New York underground rock could deliver. Guitars tore through catchy riffs, tempos shifted on a dime, horns wailed and catwalk model Cristina Martinez had enough talent, authority and charisma to make even hubby and downtown icon Jon Spencer into a sideman. Martinez and Spencer's combo of danger, sex, innovation and hooks thrilled more than just hipsters. In 1995, Boss Hog had a major label deal, a happening new record and huge cross-over potential. Then the couple had a baby (yes, he looks like Elvis); Spencer's other band—the Blues Explosion—took off, limiting his time to work with the Boss; Boss Hog's label got consumed in Seagram's Universal/Polygram merger; and the new conglomerate dropped the band, despite their debut's brisk sales.

Five years later, Boss Hog returns to make good with "Whiteout." The new record takes a bold new direction shaped by a slew of all-star producers: Gang of Four 's Andy Gill, Cardigans producer Torre Johansson, the The's Roli Mosimann, Jim "Foetus" Thirwell and Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos. Electric organ riffs backdate "Whiteout" to the blue-eyed R&B '60s, but electronica synth effects make the CD millennially hip. Cristina Martinez expands on her punk Fury persona to become seductress-turned-soul diva. Jon Spencer's guitar still rages, but "Whiteout"'s hard funk bass keeps the disc dancefloor honest.

"Get It While You Wait" is dedicated to the couple's toddler but it is anything but a lullaby. The bass wends sinisterly forward, Martinez's voice moves toward some dark inevitable while keys climb to crescendo and horns exult to guitar barrage and rock backbeat. "Stereolight" could be a clubland hit: Ethereal keys morph, dancefloor drum samples work your body and Martinez's vocals flip through different aural planes. One trippy break repeats the chorus, but from another planet, while bass throb and white noise guitar keep the track rock-and-roll real.

Paul Thomas Anderson's ability to extract poetry from the inarticulate extends to the soundtrack for his film, "Magnolia," which avoids the usual problem of old whine in new bottles by buttressing Aimee Mann's melodic turmoil with '70s AM radio gold. Hearing Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" and "The Logical Song"—gems from the days when the rock singer's job description wasn't encumbered by camera-readiness—you remember that you love these songs, and you've missed them. Likewise, the sly intersection of Mann's unplugged reading of Three Dog Night's "One," which opens the album and sets the stage for an exploration of the great beauty of sadness.