WHERE DID it all go wrong? Throughout the '90s, Whipping Boy were Dublin's primary keepers of the alternative flame. They possessed the imagination and sheer fuck-off talent to tap into rock's primal energy and rage like few others.

Commercially, it just didn't happen. Record company problems and a couple of near-misses in the effort to break through in the UK were blamed. Now, their eponymous third album has received its release two years after it was recorded. Even whether the band are still extant seems uncertain. This is the hangover from a career where everything once seemed intoxicatingly possible.

For all that, Whipping Boy is no odds'n'sods cash-in. It is an epic yet intimate record which sighs, sparkles and burns in equal measure.

Musically, the band always exhibited more subtlety than they were given credit for. So it is here. The single, 'So Much For Love' and the coruscating adrenaline rush of 'That Was Then, This Is Now' show them at their best, but there are plenty of other splashes of inspiration: check out 'Bad Books', 'Pat The Almighty' and 'Ghost of Elvis'.

As far as lyrical concerns go, the band's former keenness to prick the pretension which they felt enveloped Ireland in general and its celebrity industry in particular remains undiluted. 'Mutton' mines a similar seam to Heartworm's 'Personality' with its ironic refrain of "All I want to do is spend, spend, spend" ; 'Puppets' showcases Ferghal McKee's enviable knack for a killer couplet: "Your agent's anorexic, great at giving head/Likes a snifter in the morning and a carrot juice in bed."

It isn't all grimness and cynicism, however. 'One To Call My Own', for instance, is imbued with an affecting damaged romanticism, Ferghal tossing out lines like "she's the wind that blows my sails" with an expressiveness which transcends his technical limitations.

There are some occasions when the band's conviction deserts them, most obviously on 'Fly', where an unusually flabby production takes its toll.

Mostly, though, this is an impassioned and defiant album. If the Whipping Boy story ends here, it is a fitting closing chapter. Listen and yearn. They might have been giants.