If you're unfamiliar with Encapsulated’s premise, please allow me to bring you up to speed. This is a "new" Metroschifter album, but Metroschifter does not appear on it. Performing newly written Metroschifter songs in their place is a hand-picked roster of bands, most of whom you know if not love. After assigning a songs to each band, Metroschifter leader Scott Richter sent his bandmates-by-proxy a rough demo cassette, printed lyrics and a modest recording budget. Now, more than two years later, the results of this ground-breaking exercise have been chronicled on Encapsulated.

I knew this album was going to be a pick long before I'd heard it. “How did you know?”, you're probably wondering. Well, I'll tell you: any band that has the balls to organize a tribute to themselves is more than deserving of pick status in my book. As far as I know, the only other soul with the guts to pull a stunt like this is Stephin Merritt (with his notorious 6ths project), and I gather that nearly blew up in his face. I long ago proclaimed Merritt to be a genius and I now bestow that same honor upon Scott Richter.

The big names on Encapsulated deliver their well-known musical goods. The Get Up Kids turn “Impossible Outcomes” into a strident, new-wave inflected rocker, while the Promise Ring slather “You are So Unreal” in distorted and fed-back guitars, then stack a huge helping of melody and Davey’s vocals on top just for good measure. Tim Kinsella and sensitive art-punks Joan of Arc manage to deftly slow down, vilify, then inject large doses of humility into “Forensic Economics”. Other standouts include Cooler’s raging guitar slug-fest “Downschifter,” the Enkindels’ paean to power-punk “Burn Lexington Burn” as well as Elliott’s programming enhanced slow-burner “Isn’t Freedom a Poison”. But it’s a pair of stripped-down acoustic offerings that allows Richter’s songwriting prowess to shine the most.

Burning Airlines and Refused, two bands known for their uncompromising and unhinged sound, contribute gorgeous acoustic renditions to Encapsulated. J. Robbins and company diligently pick and strum their way through “Dear Hilary” while defunct Swedish noise terrorists Refused strip down to vocals, skeletal acoustic guitar and piano for the utterly lovely “L-182”.

Though it’s the bands appearing on Encapsulated that will receive the majority of the praise, Richter’s smart, poignant songwriting is the real shining star. Without his musical craftsmanship this album would have never left the ground. Encapsulated proves Metroschifter to be a band truly deserving of this most stunning of tributes.