At the surface, it seems the most fitting description of this album (and the Carpenters’ career at large) is “Pleasant. Not much else.” The siblings’ tight harmonies and lush arrangements create an atmosphere that is easy on the ears, without any of that weird experimentation that the Beatles and Beach Boys and Byrds and just about every other hope for good pop music in the 60s dabbled in. But the closer, Another Song, is a riotous jazz improvisation, with no vocals at all. Clearly, there must be more deeper down in the album.

This free-spiritedness is less present in the beautiful but buttoned-down singles (and excellent Beatles cover), but in songs like I’ll Never Fall In Love Again and Mr. Gruder, the Carpenters are free-spirited and playful, singing nonsensical lyrics as if they were the Ave Maria. It’s a side of the duo that I had never imagined existing, although I shouldn’t be surprised, since they are my uncle’s favorite group in the world (and my uncle has his eccentricities). But after taking the album in context, I suppose a better description would be “Pleasant, and wonderfully nuanced.”