N.E.R.D. - Seeing Sounds

Rating: * * *

Since the mid-90s the Neptunes production duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo have come up with some of the most unique pop music around for artists like Justin Timberlake and Madonna. It's odd, then, how as N.E.R.D., the band version of the Neptunes which includes friend Shae Haley, they have never nailed a good solid album.

Their 2002 debut, In Search Of ..., remains their best with the deliciously dirty Lapdance a classic; second album Fly Or Die was frustratingly flaky with only She Wants To Move a stand-out, and latest effort Seeing Sounds is also hit and miss.

Opener Time For Some Action is promising with its deep, loping groove, but the clangy bounce of first single Everyone Nose (All The Girls Standing In the Line For The Bathroom) is an example of that fine line between innovation and coming off sounding clumsy. Then there's the awful, climactic melodrama of Sooner Or Later (Prince on a bad day doing a show tune, perhaps?), the fawning Love Bomb, and Kill Joy, which rocks along weakly with what sounds like a cowbell beat, is Andre 3000 fronting the Chilis.

Elsewhere, though, their trademark off-kilter beats and pieces, like on the frantic Anti-Matter and the noisy drum 'n' bass inspired Spaz, make for some demanding and intriguing listening. And they're at their best on the smooth and sassy Yeah You, with ladies man Williams in fine vocal form.

You can't fault the ambition because merging pop, rock, hip-hop and funk together the way N.E.R.D. do is hard to pull off, especially if you don't want it to sound like rap metal. But if anyone is able to achieve it then surely it's the mighty Neptunes? Sadly here, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Scott Kara