If there's one thing that rock 'n' roll, and indie rock in particular, is sorely lacking, it's ethnic diversity. Save for a few strays here and there, the whole industry is driven by guitar-toting males who either suffer from inferiority complexes or have egos the size of Texas. The closest the genre has come to diversity over the course of its storied history was when the Beatles and Zeppelin injected elements of Middle Eastern religious music into their respective oeuvres, or when acts like Cornershop or the ironically monikered White Town scored one-off hits.

New York-based septet Barbez aren't a rock band per se, but their ghoulish mix of arena rock theatrics and cabaret thunder have established them as one of its more interesting culturally-enhanced variants. The group's self-titled debut outing is a glorious collision of old-world charm and apocalyptic future-primitive squall, brought into full, vivid view by a rag-tag crew proficient in guitar and drums as well as violin, vibraphone, Palm Pilot and perhaps most impressively, theremin. "Pirate Jenny"'s colloquial melodies and dastardly nautical themes bring to mind the warped romanticism of fellow horse-and-buggy-chasers The Decemberists, while the psychosomatic, accordion-driven lurch of "Sacrifice Poles" is rough hewn enough to bring Mangum fanatics beating at their door.

While it's easy -- nay, proper -- to peg Barbez as another bunch of avant garde weirdos from the East Village, such lazy criticism doesn't really do them, or their amazingly complex but always melodic compositions, justice. There's an honest beauty in the moon-kissed strands of "The Relationship Between Man and Bird" that belies its harsh Eastern European underpinnings, and although "The Ultimate Disaster" ebbs and flows for the better part of seven minutes, it never once sinks into prog/post-rock oblivion. Barbez have worked with obtuse artisans like John Jesurun and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, but their pop instincts remain intact, making them one of the most accessible acts to have ambled out of the shadows of pomposity in quite some time.

This self-titled debut isn't rock music as envisioned by Lennon and McCartney, nor is it classical as envisaged by Handel or Wagner, but the group's harmonious merging of such distinct styles and contrasts is a wonderful, inimitable experience, be you a barrel-chested rock titan, or a bespectacled aria lover on your way to orchestra hall.