Mick Collins has been threatening to make a Dirtbombs bubblegum-pop record for decades. In the meantime, he's made almost other every kind of Dirtbombs record imaginable: a future-dystopia Dirtbombs album, a Detroit-techno Dirtbombs album, a Dirtbombs soul-covers album. Perhaps it's a symptom of his allergy to obviousness that he's only now getting around to it.

The upcoming Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey (out September 17 on In The Red), discerning Calvin and Hobbes fans will note, is a reference to the inane bedtime story Calvin's father loathed reading and re-reading. Again, you assume Collins passed up Calvin's favorite breakfast cereal, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, because it seemed like the predictable choice. At any rate, "Girl On the Carousel" is a pleasingly tooth-rotting taste of Ka-Blooey; Collins' voice goes high, sweet, and fey, and-- good lord-- an oboe wanders in, sweetly tootling away as "the horses go up and down."