This follow-up to August's "Hello Anti-Love" navigates its way through a somewhat confusing track 0, which serves no musical function but helpfully ensures that your CD player assigns every track the number one above its listing on the back of the case, before a count-off of similarly warped mathematical logic intoduces "There Is Nothing Real". It sounds a lot like The Beatles, particularly John and George (thankfully), which is to say it sounds a lot like a really, really good song, and things are off to a flying start. "Watashi No Okoku" adds a dash of originality and a thrilling sense of twisted pop charm as the vocals flit backwards and forwards between sensual melodic caress and spoken-word disinterest, and bizarre vocal squeaks and utterances appear and vanish like Cheshire Cats in the background.

Taking a somewhat different tack, "Heroin & Cocaine" opens with a fuzzy blizzard of Colombia's finest wall of guitars, before the waltzing angst of the vocals takes you on a spin around the dancefloor of despair, digging its cracked fingernails harder and harder into your ears as it goes. If you like your wounds open and untreated then you've got the complete works here, at least until the bass and drums start mainlining The Pixies and everything tightens up for a mercifully more focused final furlong that comes as something of a relief after the creditably raw, yet somewhat painful melodrama that precedes it.

"Doitsu", on the other hand, regulates its rage and passion better, containing it within a strictly scientific framework of staccato, precision drumming and tense, spitting guitar, before letting loose the dogs of war/hounds of love and letting them run round the yard for a few minutes until it's time for their daily Chum. The balance between precision and expression is continued, although not necessarily advanced, by instrumental closing track "Edge", which provides a worthwhile showcase of the band's increasing technical abilities and expanding ambition in the realm of arrangement.

Compared to the previous recording, there is more focus on exploring the extremes of both pretty pop and ear-splitting unpleasantness, although the balance between the various aspects of their sound remains largely constant between both discs. It's also a more musically ambitious record and there are moments where the results fall just short of their ambitions and some immaturity in their songwriting becomes apparent. Nevertheless, the high points, particularly "Watashi No Okoku" and "Doitsu", manage to grasp the sublime with both hands, treading the line between accessibility and experimentation without putting a step wrong. Recent live shows indicate a move towards a greater degree of pop simplicity, with the focus more on melody than on the loopy, unpredictable dynamics that characterise some of the best material on "Cleansing Cigarette". Nevertheless, with talent to spare and new worlds to explore, whatever the future brings, I predict interestingness. -Ian Martin, Nov.28.04

Cleansing Cigarette