Rating: ***

Label: Murmur/Sony

This Melbourne trio's debut EP, The Answer to Both Your Questions, was one of the more promising local releases of last year. Emotional guitar-driven rock, it exhibited a strikingly mature sonic ambition that generated a strong live following.

The debut album is also distinguished by those same qualities. The songs are mood-induced constructions that take time in the unwinding, growing out of tentative rhythmic guitar shapes that build and lurch into the chorus. Similarly oblique and emotionally urgent, the lyrics are more spat out than sung.

However, the full album length reveals how these qualitites can also be shortcomings, and problem number one is the voice. Recorded without harmony for the most part, and lacking a little in range, its emotional pitch doesn't vary. With no discernible melody to temper the spit and bile, its appeal soon tires, as does the mid-Pacific accent. This tonelessness isn't helped by the production either which, raw and bare-boned, suffers from your usual underfunded indie blues.

Still, one must stress that Something For Kate are a young band, and such things are often among the regrettable sins of debut recordings. The overall impression of Elsewhere... is similar to that of Rail's recent first effort - of finding a young band out of their emotional depth, with a consequent tendency to over-emote, to strain.

Given a bit more time and some of those bucks that made silverchair sound so good, Something For Kate should eventually deliver on their early promise. It's just unfortunate that they haven't done so here.

Bertis Gambon