Dressed Up For the Letdown

Secretly Canadian's lovable schlub returns with a more lushly-produced set of songs, equally marked by hopeless romanticism and bouts of despair.

Richard Swift threw his dice down a lo-fi Tin Pan Alley on the Novelist/Walking Without Effort, a collection of sepia-toned curios that spanned 2001 to 2004 but sounded like visionary pop acetates from the 1904 World's Fair.

Musicians have often looked to the movies for inspiration.

<p>(Polydor)</p>