The Sleepy Jackson: The Sleepy Jackson

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

This offering by the Australian art-pop outfit, who seem to have a foot in the door in Blighty, is a short but intriguing ramble through their peculiar off-kilter sensibilities.

Yes, they may be from Perth and have a definitive article to their name (hey, look at that, doesn't everyone?) but they rock in, not out and sound shy, sensitive and pharmaceutically enhanced types who don't exactly exhaust themselves with a half-hour, eight-song mini album, their second.

There's a full-length job on the way soon on which hopefully they will - as evidenced here by songs like Good Dancers, Sunkids and Caffeine in the Morning Sun - still sound like the intriguing Antipodean cousins to the likes of Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips and the Beta Band.

Label: EMI