A fetish nurse cover shot that could've been lifted from a Jim Thompson paperback. A regular flicker between white noise and mellow, Jefferson Airplane circa Volunteers melody... It could only be the return of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley and their incumbent guru Jim O'Rourke. Having squared up as aggravating aural elders, the Youth sound rejuvenated as they alternate between Stoogey metal rattlers like "Pattern Recognition" or the fetish-laden "Dripping Dream" and irate hippie singalongs.
Lisa Gerrard, spiritually intense wailer and ex-Dead Can Dance member is, we'll wager, no close relation to Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool midfielder. But you never know. She's gone all Maori on us here for a New Zealand indie film, and aren't they the fellas who do those scary war-dance routines before playing thug-ball, or rugby, or whatever it's called? Lisa, after working on Gladiator, Ali and others, is now a big Hollywood soundtracks player, which is comically absurd but blissfully reassuring.