Heaven Ain't Happenin'

IN HIS intro to the rather splendid anthology Poetry With An Edge, Bloodaxe Books mainman Neil Astley maintained that it's not tried and trusted forms of poetry such as the sonnet which get tired, but the practitioners of those very forms.

A little distance and context proves that Astley's theory stands up when transposed to music - particularly with reference to the guitar-bass-drums format. It's a point made with some panache on these two albums, both recorded by bands who could've stepped off the second Lollapalooza stage circa 1992.

Quickspace evoke if not the hissing, then the shimmering of summer lawns. Once the false-start squall of 'The Lobbalong Song' has been dispensed with, The Death Of . .. . enters a dreamtime where guitarpeggios drift across soundscapes like soporific pollen, and tunes such as 'Climbing A Hill' approach the hypnagogic nirvana of My Bloody Valentine.

Not that it's all as drowsy and druggy. 'They Shoot Horses Don't They' channels Bowie-ish melodies over the kind of 18-string onslaught Sonic Youth still favour, while 'Munchers No Munchers' isn't so much spacerock as glowing kryptonite - kinetic and extremely volatile.

The Lapse are a slightly more sharply cut, angular proposition. Formed from the ashes of The Van Pelt, this is the band's second album and it alternately evokes The Breeders' tough-little-girl-lost allure, The Gang Of Four's frayed punk-funk plus the declamatory yowling of Richard Hell ('Buffet').

As you can imagine, the diversity of styles employed throughout HAH makes for a bumpy but pretty fascinating ride. One minute you think you're hearing Thurston Moore fronting Mission Of Burma ('Cell Yielding Cell') the next it's Black Francis with Wire ('Basilico Basilica').

And if that covers just about every

graduating class of useful 'alternative' US rock act from 1976 onwards (oops, did I forget Pere Ubu?), so be it. Heaven Ain't Happenin' may be the kind of white elephant identified alternately as snake, tree trunk and electric eel by short-sighted critics, but don't let the multi-facetedness blind you. The Lapse are their own women and men.