GOMEZ
Bring It On (Virgin)
Rating: 6 out of 7
By Chris Morris

   Damn, this is good!
   This Yorkshire, England, quintet arrives with a debut album that emulsifies a barrage of influences without managing to sound like anything you’ve heard before. Fresh-faced singer Tom Gray affects a Tom Waitsian rasp at times, and the vocal similarity is heightened by some bullhorn-style treatment, but that’s as close as any obvious similarities get; Gray is also capable of a wan sweetness that’s decidedly his own. The music runs the gamut from disturbed folk-pop to sample-clotted weirdness (these guys have heard Beefheart, too); the overall ambience is decidedly strange--sometimes hushed, sometimes rocking in a very non-linear way, but the tunes never sound oddball for their own sake. Gomez is that rarity among English bands: a group that appears to exist outside fashion. Bring It On is a simply fabulous bow that leaves one hungering for more.