Born Ian Bavitz, fans credit his starkly smart-bomb missives and his flinty-voiced, rigidly pronounced phrases for his unique dynamism.

True. Rock (Aesop, that is) has a stoic hard baritone not unlike Michael Franti's urgent turgid talk.

Aesop rarely comes off as fun or funny. But rather than concentrate on Aesop's arid chatter - the dry, angry "beast of burden's urgency" that is "Catacomb Kids" - focus instead on the rapper/producer's dizzying humor and slippery musicality.

While the dippy, bass-y jazz-hop of "Bring Back Pluto" relates travails of little Russian dolls who get incrementally smaller with talk of the drug trade, Aesop makes the apocalypse go down sweeter than medicine on "Citronella," with its honk and squeak of sampled brass and reeds. Even the epic-length "Coffee" winds up buoyant, funky and filled with speed-rapped silliness despite its decaffeinated doom sentiment. There might be plenty of vipers and vexing in Aesop's garden. But at least he's able to laugh about it. And he's so well-spoken.