Silverchair
Young Modern
Three and a half Stars

To call the new Silverchair album ambitious would be a gross failure of language. To classify it is impossible. It's a bit like listening to Daniel Johns' malfunctioning ipod on shuffle. Which isn't to say it doesn't succeed brilliantly as the work of a genius, but it won't set the world on fire for Silverchair this time.

If you are taken in by the nicely anthemic "Straight Lines" single, you will be disappointed to find it the only track of its kind on a record that mixes styles not just from track to track, but halfway through songs and back. Ghosts of The Beatles, Bowie, Beach Boys, show tunes, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, (er, Coldplay), Primal Scream and more all fight for attention amongst the huge array of vocal effects and strings laid over the songs. It's all really interesting stuff to hear, but as a long player remains too disjointed.

These songs came into being as prep for Daniel Johns' solo record, and the feeling that he calls all the creative shots in Silverchair is not shaken here. Still, the band plays brilliantly to their strengths – the rhythm section of Ben Gilles and Chris Joannau are tighter than a drum, as 15 years of playing together will attest. And Daniel Johns proves himself a vocalist of rare strength and versatility. It's still just a bit hard to follow what he's actually singing about in his wilfully obtuse lyrics.

This album has incredible moments – "The Man that Knew Too Much",  "Straight Lines", the gorgeous "Wating all Day" – and to be fair to the band, if it was anyone other than Silverchair people would be falling over themselves to herald a crazy new flavour. But the weight of expectation on them is something I'm sure they are painfully aware of. With a little more reigning in of the songwriter's every whim, the band could crack a huge comeback. But perhaps they don't want to. As far as unfettered experimentation goes, you cannot fault this album. As a cohesive record, it's wanting. But they have sure killed those little Frogstomp kids off forever.