THREE years after their stunning comeback studio album Two Against Nature, rock's driest smart alecks return with another modern take on dissatisfaction and life's little games.

The opening two songs, the title track and Things I Miss The Most, still have that cynical sparkle, with literate lyrics matched to machine-tooled music. Yet as the album progresses, something seems to be missing. The jazz-influenced music is just a little too perfect and so finely calibrated as to push excitement out of the calculation. Maybe time hasn't been kind to the smartest kids on the 1970s block, with the prickly disaffection of youth being easier to take than the distant grumbling of middle age. This is far from being a bad album, with other highlights including Slang Of Ages and Pixeleen; yet in the end, Everything Must Go reminds you that something has gone.

Updated: 11:02 Thursday, June 26, 2003