Dumb Luck

No Ben Gibbard, but Conor Oberst, Jenny Lewis, Grizzly Bear, and Lali Puna all make appearances on Jimmy Tamborello's follow-up to 2001's Life Is Full of Possibilities.

When Jimmy Tamborello asked his pal Ben Gibbard to add vocals to a song on Dntel's 2001 disc Life Is Full Of Possibilities, he surely had no idea that he was launching an electro-pop powerhouse whose debut would sell nearly a million copies and become an advertising-agency staple. But The Postal Service's Give Up—which…

For a time, it seemed like the Postal Service might overshadow Tamborello's more venerable experimental project, Dntel, so it's nice to see that he returned to it with Dumb Luck, which arrived six years after the brilliant Life Is Full of Possibilities.

Listening to Dumb Luck is kind of like listening to a robot cry for 40 minutes.

What do you do when your side-project takes on a life of its own? This has been rather a moot point for most of rock and roll history.