I was all set to finally write my long-rumored Replacements saga, but I'm listening to the new Dolorean record, "Violence in the Snowy Fields," and it's nearly impossible to be in a Replacements kind of mood when you're listening to the dreamy, mournful sounds of Dolorean. So I'll just put in a quick plug for this wonderful new record instead.

I can't quite put my finger on what I love so much about Dolorean. They're different from the few dreamy-swirly-almost-mopey bands I like, e.g. Death Cab and Postal Service and Downpilot; for one thing, they're a little twangier, and for another...I dunno, they just don't really sound like anyone else. Al James has a deadpan, almost affectless tenor voice with a sweet timbre that just gets to me. His lyrics are oddly literal in a way that wouldn't normally appeal to me, but he makes them work. (And sometimes they're very funny. There's a reference to crystalware in the odd little song "The Search" that just cracks me up, and "Dying in Time" centers on the line "Baby, let's die at the same time" and manages to make it funny more than creepy or depressive.)

You have to pay attention when you listen to Dolorean in order to really "get" them--if you don't, they'll just sound sleepy. But though there is an almost lullaby-like quality to some of their songs, there's much more to them than that--they're intricate and surprising and incredibly graceful.

This probably won't be my record of the year (yup, I'm still obsessing about my year-end list, and will be for a while); I think that honor is going to go to the magnificent Delgados' magnificent new release, "Universal Audio." But this will be a close runner-up.