A review of Nest

I used to sit up nights fretting about LiR, puzzling over their hyper-intricate arrangements and their gratuitous exhibition of their flawless, and often pointless, musical technique. On the evidence of Nest, their second album, it seems they did some collective fretting too, for all such superflous fat has been sloughed off and the cul-de-sac arrangements banished, so that now every single note counts, and what you get here is a band with lots of meat on the bone but positively no cellulite.

Their unrestrained confidence and brash exuberance make this album a joy from soup to nuts and likely to silence those sceptics,

including myself, who never really understood where LiR were heading. Until now, that is, for that missing piece of the jigsaw has finally turned up and "Nest" seamlessly fuses so many strands of rock music and is so brimful of surprises that you can't wait to press the

repeat button to discover new depths and flourishes.

'Halcyon Days', the opening track, is more Led Zeppelin than even Plant and Page can muster these days, a perfect marriage of baroque 'n' roll and no-nosense riffing metal. And it has intelligent lyrics, and a captivating melody, bonuses these days, on top of a

classically sculptured rock noise that sets a high standard that the album rarely slips below.

The cello-enhanced 'Wickerman' has a wickedly contagious, Beatlish chorus that becomes so familiar on only a couple of listens that it practically moves in upstairs. 'Into Our Dreams and Far Away' mixes a pinch of mid-career U2 with some evocative Hispanic overtones, and the recipe miraculously works. And on 'Groove Improvement' they get really funked-up in between the deliciously mighty wah-wahed chords and some blistering guitar playing.

'Railroad' opens with an unaploogetically furious battery of riffing guitars. Its thunderous beat and incendiary playing makes it one of the few rock instrumentals that doesn't sound as if they just left the vocals on the editing suite floor as the guitarists, including bass

player Robert Malone, virtually queue up to throw yet one more log on the fire. The Crosby, Stills & Nash-ish 'More To Me' skates merrily along on greased wheels after a folksy opening and proves that the band knows when restraint, rather than attack, is what a song most needs. The title track, although at first a mite laboured, starts quite casually in John Lennon mode and builds initially to a beguiling chorus and then a gut-bursting climax.

Temple Child's quasi-psychedelic arrangement renders your back-up stocks of ecstacy redundant and firmly stakes David McGuinness as one of the best rock voices of his generation, and the harmonies are typically spot-on. Another revelation is the way LiR so blissfully blend two guitarists (Quearney and Byrne) of distinctive styles, one who plays with ornate subtlety and finesse, the other enthusiastically employing all the reserves of distortion and sustain on the planet to maximum effect. Drummer Craig Hutchinson rarely puts a stick wrong and while Rick Will's production scores high marks he never lets it get in the way of the music or distract from the songs. Only on 'Shrine' does one feel that style triumphs over content. But not for long.

LiR still occasionally nod towards a neo-classical song structure or two, but this time out they make the trip worthwhile for the listener as well. They may at times be in danger of being too eclectic for their own good, but Nest proves that they have been under-rated and under-valued at home for far too long. This is one of the most inventive rock albums by a European rock band so far this decade, laden with an almost absurdly generous helping of nuclear-powered rock songs executed with equal amounts of passion and style. Wait 'til Greenpeace get to hear about this one!

Reviewed by Jackie Hayden