Recorded to tape in a mouldering 200-year-old Pennsylvania farmhouse, the zesty La Cucaracha was painstakingly whittled down to its 13 tracks from the stunning 50-plus tunes Dean and Gene Ween laid down with the help of producer, engineer and friend Andrew Weiss. Nursing upper lung infections and a simmering resentment of the inevitability of their precious work being reduced to bite-sized downloads on their fanbase’s iPod shuffles, the intrepid duo pushed through the horseshit to deliver a luxurious listening experience.

As is their custom, the lads continually alternate between the sultry and the silly, the sacred and the profane. Lazy daytrips like “Blue Balloon” recall the laid-back vibe of Chocolate and Cheese laced with the tropical strains of White Pepper. You’d think they were channelling Moby when you hear the harsh dance-floor pulses of the hyper romp “Friends,” until you absorb the gist of the über-dumb lyrics and realize it’s a tongue-in-cheek poke at canned music. Immediately shifting gears, the disciples of Boognish slow things down and pull out the ballads and westerns with the starry-eyed “Spirit Walker,” “Sweetheart in the Summer,” “Lullaby” and the Neil Young-inspired “Shamemaker.” And though they vowed to themselves that they would never release an album featuring horns, the musical equivalent of adding a cute character in the hope of saving a doomed TV sitcom, David Sanborn makes an appearance on the album, adding his saxophone stylings to the stirring but mellow closer “Your Party.” A generally down tempo affair, La Cucaracha is an unassuming outing that simply and effectively showcases a contemporary version of the Ween we all know and love. And I do mean love.