Soul Coughing's second album,
Irresistible Bliss, finds the band cutting away some of their eccentricities, leaving behind the bare basics of their pseudo-bohemian fusion of jazz, hip-hop, performance art, and alternative rock. Theoretically, the album should be more accessible; in practice, it is simply less involving. Though some engagingly quirky, off-center avant pop remains, there are no jarring juxtapositions as satisfying as those that dominated
Ruby Vroom, with its melded samples of
Howlin' Wolf and
the Andrews Sisters. There's enough strong music on
Irresistible Bliss to suggest that the album is merely a slight sophomore slump, but that still doesn't make the long stretches of tediousness on the album any more forgivable. [
Irresistible Bliss was re-released on LP in 2015.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine