Fun with pestilence.

Plague Songs

* Various artists * 4AD

The rad thing about the 10 biblical plagues is their nonstop element of surprise. Unending darkness, torrential hail, legions of frogs ... what next? Say what you will about the Old Testament God, he sure was imaginative. This unusual album, inspired by the aforementioned episodes from Exodus and featuring songs commissioned by the U.K. arts organization Artangel, taps contemporary musicians to interpret these calamities. The Man Upstairs would certainly be impressed by the variety, which ranges from Imogen Heap's radio-friendly "Glittering Clouds" (built on a rhythmic bed of sampled locusts) to the lurching "Boils" by Cody Chestnutt, which sounds like a brass band marching through some godforsaken swamp. But it's the gays, who know a thing or two about a plague, who score the highest marks: Rufus Wainwright pays homage to the death of the firstborn with "Katonah," a bluesy elegy in three-quarter time, while Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields gets his Depeche Mode on for "The Meaning of Lice," a lo-fi synthpop romp of mechanized hand claps, monophonic melodies, and hilarious rhymes. A dud or two sneak in--"Blood" by Kleshnekoff is Tricky-style trip-hop with an expired sell-by date perhaps ending in B.C. But nobody said the Almighty's wrath was all fun and games.--K.B.R.