A little star power goes a long way. At least it does with Thievery Corporation.

Not to take anything away from the downtempo D.C. dance duo of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, but their albums can sound pretty samey after a while.

And their sixth release The Cosmic Game, with its tragically hip synthesis of overused sounds and styles -- acid-jazz and trip-hop, reggae and dub, samba and bossa nova, Indian and world beat -- is mostly no different. Until the VIP guests show up, that is.

Flaming Lips kick things off with a little of their trademark psychedelic swirl, Perry Farrell gets down in a rub-a-dub stylee and David Byrne kicks things up a notch with some artsy afrobeat. And their presence seems to raise the bar for the entire set, spurring the Corp. to craft sharper hooks, deeper grooves and tighter, more song-oriented tracks than they have before.

As the philosopher Homer J. once put it, celebrities -- is there anything they can't do?

Track Listing:

1. Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun) featuring the Flaming Lips
2. Warning Shots featuring Sleepy Wonder and Gunjan
3. The Revolution Solution featuring Perry Farrell
4. The Cosmic Gate
5. Satyam Shivam Sundaram featuring Gunjan
6. Amerimacka featuring Notch
7. Ambicion Eterna (Eternal Ambition) featuring Verny Varela
8. Pela Janela (Through the Window) featuring Gigi Rezende
9. Sol Tapado featuring Patrick de Santos
10. The Heart's a Lonely Hunter featuring David Byrne
11. Holographic Universe
12. Doors of Perception featuring Gunjan
13. Wires and Watchtowers featuring Sista Pat
14. The Supreme Illusion featuring Gunjan
15. The Time We Lost Out Way featuring Loulou
16. A Gentle Dissolve