CD Reviews: Mudhoney flows to blustering perfection.

Byline: Reviews by Andrew Cowen

Mudhoney - Since We've Become Translucent (Sub Pop) HHHH The Coral (Deltasonic) HHH Coldplay - A Sudden Rush of Blood to the Head (Parlophone) HHH Philip Jeck & Jacob Kirkegaard - Soaked (Touch) HHHH Various - Lost for Words (Leaf) HHHHUshered in on a tide of feedback and squall of sax, Since We've Become Translucent could just be the most convincing American rock album of the year. Mudhoney seem to have been around forever - their hardcore roots showing on an album that nods emphatically to psychedelia and soul.

Baby Can You Dig the Light? is a great calling card, a slow-building bass-driven bruiser with a lengthy overture that could easily be Van Der Graaf Generator. Mark Arm's vocals are sunk deep in the mist of the mix. It's a great track.

Brass is smeared all over the album, a great tonal addition to an already intense band. Where the Flavor Is and Take It Like a Man are particularly stirring, the missing link between the Dead Kennedys and Earth Wind and Fire.

Elsewhere, Inside Job shows that Mudhoney need just the basic tools to get the job done. Legendary scenester Wayne Kramer supplies the right sort of bass.

Sonic Infusion comes close to Blue Oyster Cult and the Stooges for a sheer wall of guitar riffage. Violin and vibes add tonal splashes and the eight minute epic winds itself up into something approaching space rock. It's rock at its most intelligent and vital, and proof again that the Yanks are spanking our asses in the guitar league. Great cover too.

From Seattle to Liverpool with the debut album by the much-fancied The Coral. The album's been Mercury Music Prize nominated and the band are being tipped as the next big thing. The Coral are all unfeasibly young and possessing of that characteristic scouse arrogance that's half the battle. Rather that than the whining of nauseating Mancunians.

As is usually the case with bright new things, their strengths come through a recycling of influences rather than any breaking of new ground and The Coral have some pretty nifty mentors. The most Liverpudlian trait to the band is the resurrection of sea shanty shapes, a very real part of the city's musical heritage. It's there in such Beatles songs as Baby's in Black and Ocean Rain by the eighties psyche goths Echo and the Bunnymen. Spanish Main is a loping yo-ho-ho of an opener, bristling with confidence. I Remember When sounds like prime Teardrop Explodes, the vocals in particular being a dead ringer for Julian Cope. Simon Diamond harks back to 60s British pastoral pop and Skeleton Key is a furious short blast of energy.

Like most Liverpudlian bands, The Coral don't seem to have anything particularly interesting to say, but they know that playing loose and having fun can communicate more than a thousand words about the state of the nation.

Certainly a band to watch.

Coldplay's second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, couldn't be more incorrectly named. That implies a visceral reaction which the stately music within doesn't really warrant. Instead the band have served up a second helping of the minor key majesty of their acclaimed debut, smoothing out any rough edges and leaving something dignified but difficult to love. With Radiohead doing their best to cast off the standard rock audience, Coldplay are the natural successors to their throne.

A Rush of Blood... sounds like it was written to a tried and tested formula, there's nothing experimental here. Beautifully produced, particularly Chris Martin's vocals, it's chamber pop of the highest order. Songs flow into each other and the mood of edgy introspection accumulates through the album's duration.

The very definition of a grower, Coldplay look like odds-on favourites to become the biggest band in the country, showing a clean pair of heels to the increasingly ineffectual Travis and Stereophonics. Yet, there's still a lingering impression that the time is right for a new phenomenen to come along and blow the whole scene out of the water.

It's unlikely to be Philip Jeck, a perpetual favourite of mine who follows up his recent Stoked album with another for touch, this time in collaboration with Jacob Kirkegaard.

Soaked is his most evocative effort yet. Jeck's beautiful turntable manipulations mesh with Kirkegaard's unobtrusive electronics and treatments to create a 35 minute, seven part mini symphony. Rising out of silence, Soaked builds in intensity into something approaching a maelstrom. Fragments of antique vinyl noise and snippets of old songs percolate through the miasma.

As a listening experience, you can either let it wash over you or pay close attention for a more rewarding experience. Terrific stuff.

The Leaf record label is one of Britain's greatest independents with a unique roster that reads like a who's who of leftfield electronica.

Lost for Words is a budget-priced sampler that serves as a great taster for the label's wider catalogue. Worth the paltry price of admission alone is AsaChang & Junray's astonisihing Hana, a recent single that's almost impossible to categorise. Mixing east and west into a cauldren of musical glossalalia featuring strings and cheap tablas, it's one of this year's finest releases.

Leaf's other star is Japanese charismatic ambient guru Susuma Yakota whose forthcoming fourth collection for the label is his best yet. And that's saying something. Fairy Link has the trademark Yakota attention to detail and musical dexterity and shows why he's rapidly gaining a reputation as king of the chillout room.

The weird hip hop wing of the label isrepresented by Boom Bip & Doseone, recent visitors to the Medicine Bar. Their deconstruction of the perfect beat and hallucinogenic rapping on their album Circle is breathtaking. The album's a long dialogue best enjoyed in its entirety where the threads are pulled together. The two tracks lifted here work fine as stand-alone cuts, but you need the album for the full technicolour widescreen experience.

Also truly great is Gorodisch's Setting Sail, the loveliest cut from the minialbum Thurn & Taxis, an instrumental album built around the guitar of Stephen Cracknell.

Murcof are another name to watch. Vibrant soundscapes built around stateof-the-art rhythms and computer manipulations and some truly affecting performances on proper instruments. The beautiful flow of Memoria shows them off to perfection.

This primer is one to cherish and should be at the top of your shopping list.

CAPTION(S):

Coldplay's second album is polished to perfection but lacking in roughneck appeal