Guster

• ACL Music Fest Reviews

• Benevento/Russo Duo

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Guster

  BY GREG BEETS

• Amy Millan

  BY DARCIE STEVENS

• Gnarls Barkley

  BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

• Gomez

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Ray Lamontagne

  BY ANDY LANGER

• Sparklehorse

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Van Morrison

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Murder By Death

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• TV on the Radio

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• Charlie Sexton & Shannon McNally

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Los Lobos

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• The Long Winters

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Guy Clark

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• The Stills

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• KT Tunstall

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Randy Rogers Band

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• Los Amigos Invisibles

  BY ROBERT GABRIEL

• Muse

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• G. Love

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Tom Petty

  BY DARCIE STEVENS

Guster

Ganging Up on the Sun (Reprise)

Though it runs a bit long on overdrawn atmospherics rather than song-wise substance, Guster's fifth album still packs a respectable quantity of hum-worthy capture points into its 12 songs. The Massachusetts-bred trio recently became a quartet with the addition of Nashville instrumental e-man Joe Pisapia, and his presence goes a long way toward imbuing their charm with added focus and heft. Ganging Up on the Sun starts tastefully-if-unevenly with "Lightning Rod," a muted, folk-leaning war metaphor better suited toward an album's midsection. The energy picks up with the lively Ben Folds piano pop of "Manifest Destiny" and "One Man Wrecking Machine," a wistful breath of adolescent nostalgia that just might be the Nixon babies' version of Springsteen's "Glory Days." "Ruby Falls" is a grandiose, seven-minute epic with well-measured doses of psychedelic angst and a trumpet solo you don't see coming. "C'mon" follows up nicely with a soul-tinged take on the easygoing sound of Fleetwood Mac's California. "Empire State" and "Dear Valentine" cycle through pleasant enough themes without fully flowering, but "The Beginning of the End" ends the lull with an incendiary guitar fusillade straight out of 1969. Guster's chameleonlike ability to fall in line behind a diverse batch of songs is ultimately their greatest asset. (Friday, 2:30pm, AMD stage)