For "Modern Guilt," his eighth (official) studio album, Beck [ tickets ] recruited studio whiz Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton to man the studio boards. The result is the ever-morphing artist's most even outing since 2002's "Sea Change."

Like that album, which was produced by longtime Radiohead associate Nigel Godrich, "Modern Guilt" is primarily a low-key affair, although a few poppier moments emerge from the grey (but never less than tuneful) musical clouds.

Clocking in at just over half an hour in length and containing only 10 songs, this could have been Beck's Contractual Obligation Album (it's his last release for Interscope), but the mercurial performer seems to make interesting and enduring music even when he's not trying very hard.

The album's four-song opening salvo, in fact, stakes an early claim as one of Beck's most satisfying moments on record; the minor-key "Orphans" goes heavy on groovy swing without providing much insight lyrically (sample: "If we can learn how to freeze ourselves alive/We can learn to leave these burdens behind").

"Gamma Ray" trades on '60s rave-up guitars and psychedelic flute samples, while Beck continues to fret about hurricanes and lightning. Danger Mouse provides a deft touch throughout the set, letting the music form itself organically without forcing it down a specific avenue, as is becoming his signature production style. The album's third cut, the lovely, ethereal "Chemtrails," evokes grand space-rock in the Floydian tradition; Beck continues the album's main lyrical theme by fretting over "a boat sinking" and being "swallowed by evil."

The disc's title cut is a bouncy sing-along that manages to evoke melancholy and the urge to dance at the same time; "I feel uptight when I walk in the city," Beck sings, somewhat disconnectedly. "I feel so cold when I'm at home."

The set slides into a mid-album lull (highlighted by "Replica," which introduces glitchy drum-and-bass electronica to Beck's palette) that ends with the sudden reappearance of the Beck who dominated both "Odelay" and "Guero" on "Soul of a Man," a strutting, hard-funk number replete with backward guitar bursts and handclaps. "Profanity Prayers" keeps the tempo rising, an urgent rocker featuring the album's most overtly Dylanesque lyrics ("Well you know how it looks when you close all your books on the table/And you stare into space trying to decide the way now").

"Modern Guilt" closes with "Volcano," a slow-building and mournful call to investigate a volcano ("I know where I'm going"), but Beck doesn't want to fall in, he just wants to "warm my bones on that fire awhile."

With its lush string arrangements and yearning vocals, "Volcano" again recalls "Sea Change," but where that album was written from the perspective of a recent breakup, "Modern Guilt" feels like more evidence of Beck's pending mid-life existential crisis. Volcanoes, hurricanes and storms? Oh my.