It's hard to think of a grunge group that would seem less suited to dabbling in electronic music than Bush, a band better known for shamelessly aping Nirvana than for boldly blending genres. With that in mind, it's tempting to dismiss Deconstructed, which features mixes of the band's songs by producers such as Goldie, Meat Beat Manifesto's Jack Dangers and Tricky (who here produced Bush's cover of Joy Division's "In a Lonely Place"). But whether the album is an artistic leap forward for Bush or merely their attempt to jump from the alt-rock gravy train to the electronica bandwagon, they make the move more easily than one might expect.

Bush's tunes get plenty of window dressing on Deconstructed: U.K.-based remixer Greg Brimson adds break beats to "Everything Zen," and Bush themselves (under the moniker Stingray) spice up "Mouth" with driving rhythms that make Prodigy's grooves sound subtle. In both cases, however, the effects merely offer pleasant ornamentation for formulaic tunes.

The more effective remixers stretch Bush's songs beyond their verse-chorus-verse format, treating them as musical raw material rather than as structural blueprints. Dangers rewires "Insect Kin" into dance-floor-friendly drum-and-bass, while former Consolidated drum programmer Philip Steir turns "Synapse" into ghostly ambient music with detached-sounding vocals. On the album's most inventive track, Goldie and Rob Playford recast the anthemic "Swallowed" as an eerie soundscape haunted by echoing beats. Amid that ominous din, Gavin Rossdale's voice comes through only occasionally and faintly. Ironically, it's one of the strongest musical statements he's made yet. (RS 774)

ROBERT LEVINE