It has to be said, right up front, that there's almost a Dark Star formula on this record - quiet bits featuring very dubby bass and then the loud bits featuring loud, serious guitars. From which you can probably guess that you shouldn't necessarily expect much light relief in here.

What light relief there is comes from the atypical singles, 'About 3am' and 'Graceadelica'. 'About 3 am' comes complete with gentle guitars (well as far as this LP goes any way - and at least during the verses) before the obligatory guitar storm at the chorus. In passing, you discover why the single was called an edit, although the only difference is that a spoken passage is included on the LP version. To be honest the single probably made the right choice!

'Graceadelica' however is a different kettle of fish, being the only song to really figure any indication of a dance sensibility, building on shimmering keyboards and largely unobtrusive guitar work, albeit without an obvious hook. The other single, 'I am The Sun' does feature the usual quiet(ish) bits and noisy bits, but they're combined to form a runaway train of a song- alt.rock par excellence.

And these are definitely the best tracks - there's no other hidden singles here. Most of the other tracks follow the basic Dark Star template, with varying degrees of success. It works pretty well on "Ninety-Six Days", "Vertigo" and "A Disaffection" and also on "What In The World's Wrong" which probably has the strongest hook on the LP. But last track "The Sound of Awake" doesn't really go anywhere and is a disappointing finale to the record, probably due to the lack of crashing guitars.