Unless your name is Beck, being adored by critics is usually the rock-and-roll kiss of death. Modesto, CA's Grandaddy [ tickets ] is one such act--or at least they used to be. "Just Like the Fambly Cat," the band's fourth album, is also their last.

Written and sung solely by Jason Lytle, a California skate pro-turned-brainy musician, "Just Like the Fambly Cat" highlights the spacey songwriter's fondness for thick, twangy, cosmic folk-rock. But beneath a surface of lush synths, Lytle offers a set of songs that reveal--and sometimes revel in--Grandaddy's demise, not to mention his own personal state of affairs.

On "Disconnecty," he openly and plainly turns the page on a big part of his life, singing "The rest of all your life / Will be your right to fly alone / Forever more." Later, as the album draws to a close, Lytle concedes, "Things were stable yesterday / But now they're blown away," from the keenly titled "This is Always How it Starts."

While the album has a few clunkers--the super self-aware "Elevate Myself" or the whiny "Campershell Dreams," in particular--"Just Like the Fambly Cat" is a worthy end for a band whose music earned them lots of praise but not nearly enough cash.