MOG

The Odd Couple, like 2006's St. Elsewhere, starts with the sound of a movie camera spinning up film. But whereas St. Elsewhere stomped in full of pomp and circumstance, brass blazing, The Odd Couple takes a bit of a funkier, chiller approach.

Funkier and chiller: the best way to boil The Odd Couple down. St. Elsewhere exploded onto the scene like a stick of dynamite. "Crazy" was as ubiquitous as air in '06, and the crazy (no pun intended) costumes and shows that Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse had. Flushed with energy and celebration, no one was ready for what Gnarls Barkley brought us on St. Elsewhere.

The Odd Couple sounds much more mature, not as readily willing to give up its gems as Gnarls Barkley's previous outing. Even the more up-beat "Going On," "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)," and "She Knows" have a somewhat more subdued edge to them, nothing like the full gallop of "Gone Daddy Gone" or "Smiley Faces."

It seems unfair, though, to judge the second off of the first: The Odd Couple works unto itself, and feels much more appropriate in a year where we are all a bit too concerned with ends meeting to shamelessly flaunt about. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo have made an album that lends as much to introspection as jamming. There was no way that they could have re-made St. Elsewhere, so they didn't even try. I can't wait to see how they decide to go out on their next/last album.