COLDPLAYS' Chris Martin has taken to wearing Ian McCulloch's old trenchcoat.

As thanks, he turns in a couple of cameos on McCulloch's first solo album since Mysterio in 1992. Without consulting the sleevenotes, you wouldn't know it was enamoured fan Martin on backing vocals on Sliding or piano on Arthur. It can't be that great a coat. Likewise, Coldplay's Jonny Buckland and actor John Simm chip in with low-key electric guitars (on Sliding, reminding you that Will Sergeant is missing, now that Echo And The Bunnymen have gone into cold storage once more. McCulloch and his worn, if still majestic, voice need the Sergeant of the early, moody Eighties, or maybe that heavy coat to remind him of his former psychedelic glories when Jim Morrison, not Leonard Cohen, was his musical crush. For all the confessional honesty of Playground And City Parks ("I love the taste of self-defeat", he says), Slideling is workaday, autumnal indie-rock with cheese-topped lyrics devoid of mystery. There's a cheeky chunk of Lou Reed on the walk-on-the-mild-side Baby Holds On, and an Echo in the distance on Love In Veins and the string-tickled Seasons, but appropriately closing track Stake Your Claim fades out: Mac's career path mirroring each year's title challenge by his beloved Liverpool FC.

Updated: 09:32 Thursday, May 01, 2003