IT wasn't enough to sell 2002 debut album Loss and last year's Us in gold quantities.

The maverick, restless talent of Isle of Mull writer, arranger, performer and producer Colin MacIntyre was still deemed surplus to requirements by Warner. New label, new start, and MacIntyre retaliates with ill-disciplined individuality, fogging up his arrangements with over-production and distracting sound effects on a set of hyper-active, anxious songs in which his gift for melody is contaminated after the initial burst of Peculiar, How 'Bout I Love You More and Treescavengers.

He still fights for the underdog, seeks happiness in old community values and chases the euphoria of love, but his meditation on Dr David Kelly's suicide, Death Of A Scientist, is typical of the album's failings.

Instead of being moving, it bounces around as erratically as a sock in a tumble dryer. Hope dashed.

Updated: 09:02 Thursday, August 19, 2004