Sound of Water

A decade on from their first single, "Only Love Can Break Your Heart," Sound Of Water finds that Saint Etienne still believe in magic. Expect shiny pop with a motorik pulse, a nine-minute single, "How We Used to Live," named after a late '70s schools and colleges series, a concise, thrilling album that balances between the mainstream and more avant-garde concerns.

Saint Etienne's delicate, perfectly crafted blend of '60s pop and of-the-moment electronica has been replicated by so many other acts over the years that the band is threatened with losing its musical brand. The artistic achievement in Sound of Water has been diminished somewhat by competent musicians such as Broadcast and Mono having picked up the gauntlet Saint Etienne first threw down in 1988, and having taken the sounds to new places. Trends are fleeting by definition, and Saint Etienne, in the precarious position of being an inadvertent trendsetter, would have served their audience better with a little reinvention (the Cardigans made this transition magically with 1998's Gran Turismo). Rather, they stick to their overly precious formula, mixing cheap-sounding drum loops, Sarah Cracknell's snazzy-cool vocals, drawn-out melody, and subtle instrumentation (flute, harpsichord, bongos) with butterfly-fluttering techno. As lovely as it all is, by the end of the album, the ear is desperate to hear something more assertive--it's as unsatisfying as eating cotton candy all day when you long for lasagna. In all, the abundance of emotionless na na na's and la la la's result in no no no's. --Beth Massa