Few bands have reached the level of mythos bordering on cultural phenomenon that Neutral Milk Hotel has. Singer/songwriter/bandleader Jeff Mangum's surrealistic lo-fi rock songs weren't peerless or even out of the ordinary in the '90s (most artists in the Elephant 6 collective NMH was part of created similar convergences of psychedelia and pop), but there was something so gripping and personally moving in Mangum's songs that many of them took on a timelessness as more listeners tuned in over the years. In particular, the way Mangum's themes of nascent sexuality, mortality, and characters from histories real and imagined came storming in with exploding fuzz bass and immediate, unshakable melodies made 1998 album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea instantly essential to anyone even remotely interested in indie rock. The album's impact grew steadily as the years went on, reaching new listeners perennially. Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel organizes the band's complete recorded output, with both studio albums (the aforementioned Aeroplane and its 1996 predecessor On Avery Island) joined by material from various EPs, live tracks, alternate takes, demos, and the like. Absorbing the entirety of Neutral Milk Hotel's bizarre dreamworld at once can be daunting, if only because of how stunning the studio albums are on their own. The collection begins with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, one of the most complete and perfectly rounded statements independent music has created. Part lo-fi folk, part orchestral rock, the 11 songs that make up the album flow by like a guided tour through Mangum's fragmented consciousness. The moments of solitary acoustic guitar and vocals, as in "Two-Headed Boy" are balanced by the eruptive arrangements of genre-defining songs like "Holland, 1945" or "Ghost," with triumphant brass and drums making the album feel like it was played by a cartoon marching band rather than scruffy rockers. The inspired weirdness of Aeroplane highlights how it contrasts with the more experimental On Avery Island. The band's first studio album has a lot of the same elements -- blown-out drums, cyclical melodies, unexpected trumpet parts, and impressionistic lyrics -- but feels more scattered and nervous, more a gathering of songs than an interconnected work. Still, Collected Works illuminates how the seeds of ideas that bloomed on Aeroplane were germinating in earlier material. Songs from the 1994 EP Everything Is highlight the band's fondness for distortion-covered but straightforwardly arranged songs, and acoustic guitars get pushed to their limits in moments like "Snow Song." A 1998 demo of the song "Little Birds" is foreboding and a medley of alternate versions of songs off On Avery Island plays out slower, heavier, and more deliberately than the official versions. The collection is filled out by a live solo set from 1997 and acoustic songs recorded in 2010. This set offers a comprehensive look at one of the more fascinating songwriters to have come out of the '90s underground, showing the depths of Mangum's beguiling sound world go deeper (and get stranger) than his most celebrated work. ~ Fred Thomas