Mirror
Known for their flushed-face, dilated-pupil sonic extravaganzas, Flying Saucer Attack continue down their late-1990s road of chilling out withMirror. It's a gentle, almost poetic recording at times. It's also at times a thorny bath of noise, cloaking David Pearce and Rachel Brook in an aura of opaque sound that curiously pushes the ear to seek out the imperceptible. There are hints of a dance beat, but they're off so far in the distance that you feel caught outside the gloomy factory under a slate-grey sky, toe-tapping to the beat of machinery. That's of course the art of Flying Saucer Attack, and for the atmospheres alone,Mirroris worth its weight. It plays over you, drawing you and Pearce into a kind of laconic staring contest that the songs always win.--Andrew Bartlett