cultivated a reputation as an internet jester so news that he decided to cover the unreleased album initially seemed to be a prank. may crack wise on Twitter, but he takes his music seriously, so his version of this shelved 2001 album is very sober indeed. Sobriety isn't a word associated with at the dawn of the 2000s. ' love of drink isn't hidden -- the man owns his own line of wine, Dreaming Tree -- but he imbibed a little bit too much during the recording of , a move that coincided with a general aimlessness within the ranks after the group vaulted to superstardom. Eventually, drummer instigated the shelving of -- so dubbed because it, like its three predecessors, was produced by ; the record was never officially titled -- but the group didn't abandon the material, choosing to revive nine of its 12 songs for 2002's . By that point, became one of the first unreleased albums to leak on the internet, its circulation assisted by fans who were already trading live tapes. Despite featuring renditions that weren't dramatically different in arrangement, retained a cult following because it had a downer vibe unique among albums. Certainly, that dark atmosphere -- dubbed "sad bastard" by -- drew to the record, but his version of isn't especially gloomy. At times, he ratchets up the darkness -- "Diggin' a Ditch" opens with a furious open-string guitar drone, his "Bartender" veers into claustrophobia, "Monkey Man" is turned into a cloistered clutter -- but he also keeps an eye on both ' elliptical songs and 's loose-limbed jazz fusion. In other words, plays it exceedingly straight, even when he's delivering good-time numbers like "Kit Kat Jam." This po-faced sincerity winds up underscoring 's debt to -- they now seem like a clear influence on his adventurous folk-jazz -- while also highlighting the imagination behind the original set of songs. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine