The Sebadoh

Annoyance, anger and extreme frustration, that's what it's about, and I'm not describing song themes either. This is just the way I usually feel when listening to a Sebadoh album.

It's not that I don't like the band, but Lou Barlow ... Co.'s constant flitting between musical styles can be extremely disheartening for the listener: one moment you're listening to a disarmingly honest and gentle paean to love and the next you're bombarded by the kind of cacophonic conundrums that shouldn't make it past the editing suite. Welcome to the fucked up world of Sebadoh.

Thankfully, The Sebadoh, their seventh long player, isn't as musically polarised as, say their last outing, 1996's Harmacy (which would have made a classic mini-album), but it still contains enough numbing noisefests, like 'Bird In The Hand' and 'Cuban', to piss this listener off.

However, when they get it right, like the jangly opening 'It's All You', their current single, 'Flame', or the magical 'Colorblind', their music is a joy to behold: catchy and insistent. In short, Sebadoh work best when they concentrate on jangling rather than jarring guitars, on melody instead of malady.

Similarly, ballads like the plaintive 'Tree' and Lou Barlow's weary resignation on 'Love Is Stronger' show Sebadoh's quieter, more intimate side, and prove that Barlow is one of the finest songwriters on the far side of the Atlantic. This album has (thankfully) less of the lo-fi guitar trashing than previous affairs and the band sound more together, more focused, than ever before.

That said though, it's not their career-defining moment: I feel their Sergeant Pepper is yet to come. But for now, The Sebadoh sees them moving in the right direction and is more than enough to be going along with.