The Radio Dept. certainly took their time with this one. Clinging to a Scheme, their third album released since the band's formation in 1995, was announced almost two years ago for a fall 2008 release and then delayed every six months until this week, when it finally surfaced. Fortunately, unlike other records plagued by protracted schedules, this one's not terrible nor rendered irrelevant by delays a la Chinese Democracy. In fact, it's quite excellent; it's without a doubt the band's most accessible and immediate album, and one that perfectly captures the sensations and moods of a rained-out beach party. More than ever before, the band has songs to keep up with its textures, and unlike most worlds defined by dense guitars and deliberately broken-sounding drum machines it's one worth revisiting.

Some really interesting things happen when literary critics or book reviewers (who aren't already authors) try their hands at writing novels. You can get incredibly complex, intelligent works of art like Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose," T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" or Scarlett Thomas's "The End of Mr. Y," or you can get Lev Grossman's "The Magicians."