Album: N*E*R*D

In Search of..., Virgin

As hip hop acronyms go, you really have to be sure of yourself to choose a name such as NERD. Particularly if your name doesn't actually spell NERD, but NOERD (No One Ever Really Dies). Short of finding a phrase that might concertina down to GEEK, it would be hard to devise one with less panache and street-cred.

And when two-thirds of the group has already made a perfectly respected name as a production duo (the Neptunes), the choice seems downright perverse. Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams have been operating as the Neptunes since the swingbeat king Teddy Riley discovered them as high-school kids, going on to challenge Timbaland and Missy Elliott's crown as creators of infectious, cutting-edge new beats through hits such as Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass" and Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Got Your Money", and racking up further commissions from the likes of Janet Jackson, Jay-Z and Jennifer Lopez. Together with their old school chum Shay, Chad and Hugo here offer their own peculiar slant on the R&B format, featuring their trademark terse snare-drum cracks and twitchy techno throbs as the chassis for a diverse range of idiosyncratic compositions.

With lyrics and musical elements recalling sources as diverse as the Beatles, Can, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, the funk homilies of Bill Withers and Bobby Womack ("You're convinced our experience rearranged you/ Well, maybe you should examine how you try") and the cosmic romance of PM Dawn ("You're my morning shower/ subconscious memory/ LSD... You are my alien"), NERD are working with a much broader range of musical colours than most of their peers, but they still manage to make it all seem stripped-down and simple: a spartan sound for a newer, leaner Daisy Age.

They're funny, too, sardonically enquiring: "Do I really even love you/ Or do I just love your brain?" at one point, and at another trying to cajole a girlfriend into an erotic video shoot (just to capture her beauty at its peak, you understand) with the admission: "It's my single-handedly/ It's just my fantasy." Even their put-downs are funny rather than frightening, especially their dead-on parody of Limp Bizkit's plastic rage in "Rock Star – Poser".

You're probably already familiar with the single "Lapdance", whose insistent, Morse-code tension is echoed in "Truth or Dare", a bout of verbal thrust and parry between the guest rappers Kelis and Terrar that's sure to secure single release. The best tracks, though, are "Run to the Sun", a prime slice of lazy, sun-dappled summer funk in the vein of Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay", and "Provider", a tale of underdog fatalism whose protagonist promises to look over his partner and child as an angel if he dies while "facing the streets tonight". Serious and stylish, light-hearted and limber, In Search of... doesn't so much raise the bar of R&B as operate on a different playing-field altogether.