REVIEW: Gnarls Barkley "St. Elsewhere"

Rating: 5.5

If Moby hadn't already cashed in Play and lost himself in the world of designer tea bags he'd probably be knocking on Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo's door looking for royalties.  Nothing new here and certainly nothing interesting enough to launch it into the cross-Atlantic pop stratosphere the way it did.  Go figure.

Crazy as a single is deserving of its heavy rotation if not the endless parde of covers it has inspired (Nelly Furtado, Twilight Singers, Ray LaMontagne, The Kooks...), but the duo's own cover of The Violent Femmes Gone Daddy Gone is insultingly awful.  The earnest crooning and crisp studio beats that serve Elsewhere elsewhere only strip the jangling original of its angst, perversion and breathless, urgent appeal – the best things it has going for it.