*** Flying Saucer Attack

MIRROR

(Drag City)

Space. Tides. River. Dust. Rise. These are the things -- motion and the elements -- that preoccupy Flying Saucer Attack's David Pearce. They also happen to be the titles of five of the 11 tracks on Mirror. As those James Michener-esque titles suggest, FSA aspire to -- and often achieve -- a sense of epic sweep and grandeur built on minimalism, repetition, and Pearce's impeccable taste in atmosphere.

Mirror both extends and reflects the fruitful ambient-space rock journey that began with the Bristol outfit's homonymous '94 debut. FSA nod once more to their city's trip-hop/drum 'n' bass scene ("Dark Wind" and "Winter Song") -- in their own distortion-sheathed, white-noise way, of course -- but this time out they're mostly about incorporating prog-experimentalist ancestors like Can, Popul Vuh, and Meddle-era Floyd ("Dust") into a pulsing mix of droning trancedelia and noisy exposition. Mirror's two best tracks, however, are also its quietest and most pastoral: "Suncatcher," which might be about a dying lover, is a lovely acoustic hymn with an exquisite melodic ache that recalls the Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman at his most tender. Ditto for "Tides," on which Pearce confides his fear of being once more helplessly smitten with someone who "half killed me" years before -- an alchemy of elements and motion of a different sort, perhaps.

-- Jonathan Perry