More new than Neu!, with Chemical Chords Stereolab has broken ranks with the (admittedly wonderful) lockstep lounge drones of its past several albums in order to embrace something that is, for them, a bit more experimental: three-minute pop ditties.

From the four-on-the-floor arterial throb that opens “Three Women” into a brassy blast of lilting francophilic lyrics and '60s jazz-pop, to the skipping, breathless vocal pop and spidery organs of “Neon Beanbag,” to the bouncy baroque of “Cellulose Sunshine,” these "seriously, we’re not Marxist" Marxists have discovered the spry immediacy that most bands half their age usually lose two albums into a commercial, capitalist-fueled career (just kidding you, 'Lab).

Though some of the oddball, art-house tendencies have been lost in this new translation of the band’s music, there has never been a better, brighter or more immediately satisfying pop soundtrack to Das Kapital.