The Drift

Scott Walker's music is often described as 'complex' or 'experimental.'

Several years in the making, 'eclectic' barely touches what he's been up to since Tilt, which compared to this, sounds about as avant-garde as The Partridge Family.

Veering through the perplexed clutter of sporadic punch-bag rhythms, serrated riffs and chest-gripping rumbles, it growls and prowls with obsessive Twin Peaks twang-bar paranoia.

Seeping in and out of episodic pieces such as "Clara", "Cue" and "Psoriatic", his singing a ghost-echo of a pop past spookily materialises, rattling chains and cages without compromise or care.

It can be intimidating; the aural equivalent of channel-hopping through a blur of unfathomable references which somehow form cryptic connections after prolonged exposure.

Only the simple acoustic guitar of "A Lover Loves" offers a sparse antidote to the harsh density of this dissonant, dissident manifesto.Beyond genre, you'll love it madly or hate it completely.Frightening, yet magnificent.