London’s Various (frontrunner for most pretentious band name of 2006) matches mysterious spook-folk and dungeon electronics with an ominous secrecy. Much like The Knife-whose Silent Shout enjoyed a second round of popularity thanks to America’s transfixion on the duo‘s furtive, face-painted shtick-Various is hush-hush when it comes to identity, image, or anything that might pull the curtain away and reveal the hidden puppeteers and make them somewhat Googleable. But smoke and mirrors work wonders-the ghostly tracks here wouldn’t pack nearly the same punch without the mystery. Like a British Lansing-Dreiden (only less art-school shithead and a lot more cave-dwelling madman), Various deals mostly in grimy beats and mossy, castle-ready meditations. It’s far from groundbreaking, but taken as a whole, the band seems poised to emerge as one of today’s more interesting acts.