A New Tide

Like mad scientists, Gomez have been trying to concoct a hybrid of Britpop and American roots music for more than a decade now, to varying degrees of success. Their debut, Bring It On, which beat out Pulp's This Is Hardcore and Cornershop's When I Was Born for the 7th Time for the 1998 Mercury Prize, seemingly set a blueprint for future experimentation with a shaggy-haired combination that sounded raw yet ambitious, unforced yet focused. On their too-quick follow-up, 1999's Liquid Skin, Gomez buffed away most of the rough edges and derived a glossier, showier sound. They had lost the plot: The band was supposed to take over the world, not continue tinkering in the lab. In the meantime, that sophomore album has become Gomez's default setting: Even when they pushed reset on 2004's Split the Difference, their first collaboration with an outside producer, they couldn't escape the slick elements that were beginning to appear intrinsic to the project all along.