Midnite Vultures

While Beck Hansen's 'everything including the kitchen sink plughole' approach mightn't be to everyone's taste, you certainly can't accuse the man of ever being boring! The classic 1996 outing Odelay was the sound of two turntables and a microphone mixed with just about anything going, while last years 'low key' follow-up Mutations offered a collection of sombre songs dedicated to his long term girlfriend.

Now, by way of contrast and compliment, what may well prove to be the last significant album release of the millennium is very appropriately a brash, technicoloured celebration of carnal chaos and wild, unadulterated partying.

"I want to find/the logic of our sexxlaws", howls the carnal balladeer, immediately introducing the dominant mood on the opening track, and current single, with a Memphis boogaloo-flavoured smack in the face.

From this typically surreal yet hard-hitting mission statement, where does Beck's sex-quest lead us? Why, up eleven streamlined avenues of pure sonic bliss, that's where. And wait until you hear some of his chat up lines: "I'll feed you fruit that doesn't exist/I'll leave graffiti where you've never been kissed/I'll do your laundry, massage your soul/I'll turn you over to the Highway Patrol" ('Nicotine & Gravy').

Each kooky, cracked opus is fleshed out with arrangements that are undeniably infused with slap-dash genius. 'Get Real Paid' is founded on a crunchy electro shuffle that constantly sounds as if it could kick off into Daft Punk style mayhem at any given second. 'Hollywood Freaks' is a nigh-on impossible tune to describe in cold, constraining words, but imagine Eminem on acid ranting about "champagne and Red Bull", while jamming with Chuck Berry and Prince, and you're getting there.

All very well, perhaps, but is there anything here to finally and convincingly refute the widely-held opinion that Beck is nothing more than a masterful post-modern chameleon of multiple styles over substance or emotional depth? The kernel of this issue is that for all the complex threads Beck weaves on Midnite Vultures, the ultimate aim is very, very simple: to make perfect pop music that somehow still embodies the most far-flung of Utopian musical freedoms.

When you digest the eye-poppingly brilliant feast on offer here, it is increasingly apparent that no one is as powerfully, imaginatively capable as Beck of delivering a saving adrenalin shot to pop music. In an era of mass-produced factory pap. Midnite Vultures encapsulates the raw energy and spirit of a golden age of pop and disco when Sly and the Family Stone and their ilk ruled, but still manages to sound refreshingly contemporary - some achievement.

It is a case of impeccable timing that at the arse end of the decade when pop in its blandest sense has become the dominant cultural idiom, one great last hope returns with by far his most accomplished, downright loveable and most impeccably executed record to date.

His name is Beck. His album is called Midnite Vultures. Sing Hallelujah.