Given song titles like "Like a Droid to the Slaughter", "The Cyberghetto" and "Dawn in New Hope II" one isn't surprised to hear the spacy jazz rock that streams, as if from deep within the cosmos, from the latest CD to zoom, hyperdrive-like, across my desk. The disc is Slickaphonics, the band is The Replikants and the galaxy is Olympia, WA where everything is a little bit retro in a futuristic kind of way. The best name-drop I can make here is Man or Astroman?; The Replikants kind of sound like a more loungy, less musically spastic version of that venerable techno-surf band. In another sense, the sort of mock-epic instrumental nature of much of Slickaphonics reminds me of trance bands like Spiritualized, without the drug references. I can't really pick favorite songs; I like them all, and anyway they go together in one big, long cycle, culminating in the weirdly pensive, final-sounding "Replikants Requiem". Maybe they come back to life in the sequel! Only time will tell.