SNOUT - The New Pop Dialogue ***1/2 EVEN - Less Is More ***1/2,   hooked on classics -  by Simon Wooldridge  Thank god it's a tie. As impossible as it is to set bands up against one another in review, it's rarely more applicable than in this case.

The New Pop Dialogue and Less Is More are two of Melbourne's most anticipated indie releases - Snout and Even share a "next big thing" tag - and as luck would have it they're being released concurrently. There is also a musical connection between the bands which indicates a mutual record collection rather than any sideways glances or plagarism. The New Pop Dialogue and Less Is More also happen to be two albums whose aims are succinctly summed up by their titles.

Now that nothing's new (when was it ever?) there's virtue in subverting the precedents of yesteryear, taking an established musical form and reworking it. You're therefore dealing not only with pure sounds but with all cultural antecedents that accompany them. Every rock album has been in it's own way post-modern (an unpleasant cliché, but you get the picture) reflecting the musical history of the musicians involved and the scene from which they sprang. But when bands start dressing it up as obviously as he 90's revivalists have been, fans begin to wonder if the comment isn't actually a cop-out, a reflection of creative drought rather than any kind of genuine attitude or originality. 

So it is when considering Snout, a band encased in mod chic and etro style, borrowing musically from 60's pop and visually from the streamlined sharp look that made mods the perfect reaction to rock's from-the-hip grit. Where rock is all testosterone and honest aggro, mod relies on poise and an indispensible sense of one's own transiencs, an understanding if the cannibalistic nature of pop and fashion. With New Pop Dialogue, vocalist, bassist and driving force Ross McLennan, drummer Ewen McCartney and substantial ock guitarist Greg Ng manage to reinterpret the Kinks' and Beatles' simple early work with 90's savvy. 

So, whether this is serious revivalism on Snout's part or a joke whose punchline comes ourtesy of the landscape that inspired it, in using '60s aesthetic the band manage to invoke the sense of timelessness they were after. They've revived the excitement and naivete of a past era, updating it with modernist lyrics and strange arrangements that ramble in every direction. 

It's ironic that the best tunes are also the most familiar. "The Hour 'O Power" (with it's line "You can't touch this like I'm MC Hammer") is a two chord '60s onder, despite the samples and dubby middle-eight. The impeccably titled "Benign The Benign" starts as a cocktail muzak number and builds to an incendiary rocker (despite the fey accents and harmonies, the "oh yeah"s nd flowery voal embellishments mean something different this time around). "Matter Baby" isa prime exampleof McLennan's 90's take on classic British pop, with it's keen hook "Been breathing liquid for so long/Oxygen is burning up my ongue and my gums/Look out lungs, here it comes." And as close as "Cromagnonman" comes to other songs, it's cartoonish examintaion of modern masculinity and evolution is a new message coming via an old vehicle. 

There's also variety and experiment. "Lil' Pop Writer" is filled with chilling dissonance, while "Anticipating" is cheesy, fresh-sounding pop with a beehive sting section comprised of bizarre-sounding cellos. "Keep 'Em Guessing" has scratch-solos and a brass section. The recording occasionally reveals the limits of McLennans voice, which is at times too close to the mock-accented sound of the Electric Hippies (though with out Snout's sense of style and that immeasurable element of rock cool). But beyond these concerns, The New Pop Dialogue is certainly the realisation of the ambitious aimsset by Snout with their '94 debut What's That Sound? And on that front it's a great record.