What a quiet chameleon Beck is.

First the guy pops up in the mid-'90s with Odelay and rocks the charts with his quirky fusion of psychedelic pop, rap and rock.

He then disappears for a few years, only to make a totally revamped return with the funky, sex-laden sounds of Midnite Vultures.

Critics scoffed at the album because of its sneering tone, yet they were more than ready to welcome Beck back with open arms after the 2002 release of Sea Change.

Smartly opting for a more somber tone on this album, Beck ended up receiving even more critical acclaim for Sea Change than he had previously for Odelay.

However, lost somewhere in the critical shuffle of the '90s was one of Beck's most startlingly straightforward albums. Before Vultures and before Sea Change, there was Mutations, Beck's long-awaited follow-up to the Grammy-winning Odelay.

Unfortunately, 1998's Mutations wasn't exactly the landmark album most critics and fans had been waiting for. Instead of providing the same raucous, tongue-in-cheek dance tracks of the 1996 Grammy-winner, Mutations put off a subdued, trippy tone that had people wondering whether or not it was a true follow-up album. Swept under the rug as some sort of side project, Mutations received little airplay and attention from both the media and fans.

Yet anyone with a true love of the artist will know that Mutations isn't just some genre experiment to be easily dismissed. True, it was a commercial break from the Top 40 success of Odelay, but there was something so natural and surreal about the songwriting in Mutations that it ached for another listen.

Halfway between Bob Dylan and The Doors, Mutations finds its middle ground by pairing that same whimsical psychedelic themes from Odelay with contemporary country-blues and lo-fi rock. Spanning everything from dusty acoustic ballads to eclectic folk-pop, this album is Beck's best attempt at indie rock. Even his inspired songwriting spans the genre, being at times as heart wrenching as it is playful.

Case in point? The album starts out with the twangy, acoustic rocker "Cold Brains," but by track six, it completely changes tone. One hundred and eighty degrees away from all that country and folk is "Tropicalia," a quirky song with a calypso beat that conjures up images of tropical beaches rather than faded deserts.

Though Mutations is certainly fun when Beck is swaggering through rollicking blues songs such as "Canceled Check" and "Bottle of Blues," the album really doesn't come into its own until Beck gets serious.

On the sitar-laced ballad "Nobody's Fault But My Own," he shows a painful, almost Kurt Cobain-like self-awareness that's as heartbreaking as it is beautiful. Against the haunting sitar waves, Beck elegantly sings, "when the moon is counterfeit/better find the one that fits. Better find the one that lights the way for you."

With this bare-bones song, Beck finally proves that he's not only a musician, he's an artist that deserves more than a pop-culture kitsch label.

In the end, both the simplicity of "Nobody's Fault" and the rest of Mutations just may prove to be the groundwork for greater things to come.