On the face of it, you could take the title as indicating a reversal of the Manics' musical prejudices. Nicky Wire might've always professed a hatred of the New York school of hip, yet the opening notes of this album find his band blamming their way through a prime Velvets 4/4 and one-note piano motif ('Found That Soul'). A couple of tunes later, on 'Intravenous Agnostic', the trio sound for all the world like Sonic Youth sparring with their young pretenders And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. Less controversially, the leadoff single 'So Why So Sad' is a glistening piece of Motown junk capped with vintage Beach Boys backing vocals. What gives?

The short answer is, a lot. After the lukewarm response to This Is My Truth..., the Manic Street Preachers might've felt like they had some credibility to reclaim on this record. And sure, that last album slumped halfway through, but in retrospect works better as a folk song cycle rather than The Most Important Album Of The Year, as it was albatrossed by the record company. And what that collection lacked in glamour, it had in melody, no matter how maudlin.

Similarly, Know Your Enemy is a good record wrestling itself toward greatness. What keeps it from hitting the 12-star bullseye is a kind of inbuilt sonic schism: where the sounds are sexy, the airs ain't so alluring. In other words, the strongest songs wear the plainest clothes. In the former category, you get the Fall-ish 'Wattsville Blues' and the funky - yep, funky! - 'Miss Europa Disco Dancer', both acts of dilettante-ism that render the band almost unrecognisable. In the latter, the college radio jangle of 'The Year Of Purification' or 'Let Robeson Sing'.

However, the good news for Holy Bible-ites is telegraphed by titles like 'Dead Martyrs', 'My Guernica' or the yank-baiting 'Baby Elian', proof that many of the qualities attributed solely to Richey Edwards - death camp chic, poetic polemic, lines like "I exist in a place/A self-made vacuum/But still stranded here with all the scum/So clean - so lost - so beautiful" - have always been as much the product of Nicky's neuroses.

But enough hair-splitting; all the disparities click together on a clutch of tunes located at the album's nerve centre: the assured throb of 'His Last Painting', 'My Guernica' and 'The Convalescent', an impressive melding of garage rock noise, bolstered choruses and Euro-centric treatments. Re-programme your CD player to shuffle the second half of the album to the front and you've got a far more confident body of work.

Know Your Enemy mightn't start any new trends on the high street, but it does represent a valiant attempt to slip the straightjacket of the Brits years without compromising aesthetic or economic ambition. A highwire act for sure, but they carry it off.

Peter Murphy 8