In 2004, the professionally mellow British outfit Zero 7 received an honor at the time second only to an O.C. appearance - a life-changing spot on Zach Braff’s Garden State soundtrack. The song was “In the Waiting Line”, from 2001’s semi-successful Simple Things, a seventy-minute album one might call “sprawling” were its modest, whispery shuffle not antithetical to anything so messy and noticeable as sprawling. For every review lauding the record as a quiet, graceful British complement to worthy Continental opponents Air, there was an elevator-music accusation; for every listener enamoured of slight, charming instrumentals like “End Theme,” there was one unwilling to sit through another six-minute track to see if any vocals showed up. 2004’s similar When it Falls tried critics’ patience more noticeably, but with The Garden, out a few days ago, Zero 7 makes a progression—again, one that might be called “startling” were startling anyone not so completely out of the question.

Wisely availing themselves more frequently of Australian chanteuse Sia—who despite subscribing to the Syllable Extension school of female vocalists has the modesty and ability to avoid the psychotic ululation of America’s idols—and of new guest singer Jose Gonzalez, Zero 7’s core duo of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker wander afield of their old cloudy ambience and towards a tighter, more dynamic kind of pop. “The Pageant of the Bizarre” meanders appealingly through Top 40 diva-pop and indie-frontwoman pseudocountry; “Left Behind,” devoid of the group’s usual hazy electronics, is so short and sounds so much like a Paul song from the White Album it’s almost as hard not to enjoy as it is not to feel guilty about enjoying. And at her Feistiest in songs like “Throw It All Away,” Sia injects smoky life into the band’s dentist’s-office moodiness.

Zero 7 is still slow, quiet, and impeccably tasteful; there’s little on The Garden to dissuade anyone still determined to relegate them to the elevator. But Binns and Hardaker have chosen the right guests, the right arrangements, and, at last, the right lengths; and if their clinical mellowness isn’t much by itself, as a platform for snaky pop songs it’s something of a triumph. Not that “triumphant” is the right word either.

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