Snowden - 'Anti Anti' (Jaded Tree) Released 22/08/06

Proving that shoegazing never really went away, Atlanta, Georgia's Snowden release 'Anti Anti', their major-label debut, a tense, paranoid record, layered with heavy reverb and rumbling bass. While it's usually a prerequisite to compare any bands from that area of the world to the Athens-based R.E.M, Snowden seem determined to forgo accessible alt-rock for a Spaceman 3-style drone. It's an uneasy liaison, a young American band tackling that most English of musical genres, and one that only pays off in fits and starts.

With a predominantly English based set of influences, you'd be excused for expecting Snowden to be a badly anglicised bunch of Jesus and Mary Chain devotees hankering for an escape from sunny Atlanta to the mistier climbs of Manchester. And, in a way, you'd be right - you can hear early Cure and My Bloody Valentine practically seeping through their songs, and lead singer Jordan Jeffares sounds like a man who's listened to one too many Joy Division albums. However, the Atlanteans have a welter of American references in their songs too, ones that pull the album out of revivalist mediocrity and into actually-quite exciting status.

'My Murmuring Darling' is a dreamy, echoing ballad that suggests the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at their most languid, and 'Like Bullets' and 'Black Eyes' could be singles by the now sadly demised Mad Action. However, no song really matches up to the more experimental, and frankly far more interesting Secret Machines, whose psychedelia-tinged takes on the shoe gaze genre have lifted them far above most of their contemporaries, and leave Snowden looking a little out of date. The constant, overbearing spectres of messers Shields, Pierce and Reid hang heavy over 'Anti-Anti' and it's frustrating that Snowden don't play their American hand enough during the record, and what could have been a fascinating cross-continental record often sounds messy.

This isn't to say there aren't enough positives on 'Anti-Anti' to disregard it completely - Snowden certainly know how to write a good tune. The title track is a bouncing pop song, which swoops and soars across a whooped backing vocal – but too often the band allow their songs to be drenched in reverb so heavy you forget what you were listening to in the first place. This would be fine for Kevin Shield's bunch around their 'Loveless' era, but for a band trying to shift albums it's an almost fatal mistake. Luckily, much of their output makes up for it, hidden under the distortion there are rich pickings for pop fans, and even the odd political polemic on 'Counterfeit Rules'.

But, whilst displaying a distinct lack of rudimentary Welsh geography, Snowden (perhaps named after the similarly misspelled Doves song) seem too often to be drifting aimlessly between the two continents, with little idea of how to get off the lifeboat. While there are good ideas here, British bands like Editors and Doves have already hit the populist fuzzy post-punk nail on the head, while American bans like Secret Machines and Interpol are comprehensively beating British shoegazing acts at their own game. This is not a bad album in any sense of the word, but you get the impression that Snowden will only really hit their stride once they find a voice of their own, and stop trying to emulate their heroes.