To mix metaphors, for most of the 1990s Matthew Sweet didn't so much march to his own drummer as swim determinedly against many of the prevailing rough currents in rock music.

For Sweet, the melodic sensibilities, adventurous arrangements, and production values of '60s and '70s pop have remained long-lost Holy Grails to be passionately sought. Closing out what he's termed rock's "dry decade" (for its production values, if not content), "In Reverse" hearkens back to Phil Spector's wall of sound and Brian Wilson's mid-'60s studio prime with a vengeance. (The great bassist of choice during those epochal recordings, Carol Kaye, is a key player here.) Epic in scope and harmonically intoxicating (if occasionally overwrought), this is an album by an artist measuring the distance between his reach and his grasp, his good sense and self-indulgence, his confidence growing with every back-to-the future track.