Man Mountain

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With something preposterous like two million records being released every year in Britain alone, it's fairly safe to say that these days making a great record is not enough to get your great record noticed. No, as many often lament, the real work these days is that of the marketing people. Blue States have been offered to us as being one of the several thousand people to have been tagged "the British Air", compared to Zero 7, Hefner and Kinobe and have also featured on a number of those chillout compilations that fill up the racks in your local record shop. Listening to "Man Mountain" however, the striking thing is that Blue States aren't really yet another of those downtempo chillout things at all. What they are, in fact, is a rather fine rock group. Pitted against things like Doves' big washes of emoting sound, or even Starsailor or Coldplay's introspective, piano driven Buckley-esque maudlin, Blue States could take on the opposition and come out winning.

In a period when lots of rock bands think that roping in a string section, sticking a horn part on to one of their songs or trying to rip off a few soul records is a major innovation that should at least guarantee them a major news story in the NME, Blue States mainman Andy Dragazis shows how to integrate all these things with an almost offhand naturalness. Moreover, instead of either the chest-beating or whingeing that characterises so much contemporary rock, "Man Mountain" features the rich and creamy voice of co-writer Ty Bulmer. Opener "Metro Sound" belies its title and sets the feel for the record with its notably pastoral sound - many of the tracks here hint back to currently fashionable figures like Nick Drake and John Martyn.

Charles Dragazis' atmospheric cover photos of wide open landscapes tentatively framed by human intervention back up this feeling, as do the touches of slide guitar on the title track which hint at the FM radio you might have on as you speed along the highway, sun glinting off the hills in the distance. The vaguely Morcheeba-ish "What We've Won" even has hints of country in it, as does the lonesome violin on "Colouration" and the closing "Adrift" which, from its title on, is a great Mazzy Star song. "The Winfield Audition" has a decidedly more English folky feel while "Only Today" deftly mixes mandolins with cinematic strings and sweeping vocals and "Season Song" even chucks a kids choir into the pot. "Bare Bones" has vaguely psychedelic phased horns and funky drumming and shows that Blue States can rock as well as any of the lads. "Doublespeak" meanwhile understates its anthemic possibilities: in lad rock hands the chorus "and we, for ever one will be" would have a thousand lighters raised at Knebworth or Reading.

An assured, confident and slightly misplaced record. To hell with the marketing department.