Todd Rundgren
has never been at a loss for clever ideas, but even so,
Space Force
is a particularly ingenious project. Like its predecessor
White Knight
, it's a collaborative effort, but the catch is it consists entirely of songs the original composer left unfinished --
Rundgren
stepped in to give them a final polish. It's not an uncommon way of working. Essentially, it's similar to the role of a producer who will come in and push an artist over the finish line, but with
, it works in reverse: He solicited songwriters for their incomplete songs so he could bring them to life.
works with a couple of up-and-comers here, ranging from his indie descendants
the Lemon Twigs
to multimedia hip-hop artist
Narcy
, but he generally turns to old friends, colleagues, and like-minded stars for their own idiosyncratic scraps. The results are naturally a bit scattered sonically, as any record featuring
Steve Vai
and
the Roots
would inevitably be, yet it's tied together by
's aural aesthetic and sense of mischief. The latter comes into focus with "Down with the Ship," a novelty number spun out of a
Rivers Cuomo
track sampling
the Skatalites
's "Dick Tracy" that could easily have slid onto
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect
, where it would happily coexist with "Bang the Drum All Day." A lot of the album shares a similar retro-futuristic vibe with
Ever Popular
while also echoing the post-psychedelic soul of
A Wizard A True Sta
r, an unexpected and happy development. This sense of indulgence does mean that
's impishness is dialed up to an extreme, surfacing on the absurd
Sparks
romp "Your Fandango" and "I'm Leaving," where
apparently gave
a song designed to sound like a cut buried on the forgotten side of the double-LP
Todd
.
Cheap Trick
's
Rick Nielsen
helps ratchet up the obnoxiousness with the wailing "STFU," while
Thomas Dolby
sounds uncannily like
Roger Waters
on "I'm Not Your Dog." All this sound and fury is good fun yet the heart of the album lies in lovely, ethereal moments like
Adrian Belew
's "Puzzle" and
Neil Finn
's "Artist in Residence," which both recall
Utopia
at their soft rock peak, and "Godiva Girl," where
help ease
back into Philly soul mode. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine