For a record so blatantly psychedelic, with its pink acoustic-guitar blush and dainty paisley keyboards, there is not a lot of peace and love on Virgins and Philistines, the Colour Field's debut album. Singer Terry Hall is already a well-known grump. He darkened the Specials' rainbow dance stance with his bratty ironic tone and created the minimalist doom pop of Fun Boy Three in his own sullen image. On Virgins and Philistines, he sours the eccentric allure of the Colour Field's baroque folk with smug put-downs of former lovers ("So I'll say sorry, I hope it will do," from "Sorry") and vicious backhands like this description of hunting in "Cruel Circus": "a sport that's legal within the minds of the mentally ill." Even when Hall tries to turn on the charm in the ballad "Thinking of You," the samba beat is so swishy, the background violins so drenched in glucose, that you can't help feeling he is cackling behind all that mush.

That's a pity, because musically Virgins and Philistines is rich in possibility. On a surprising cover of the Roches' intricate ballad "Hammond Song," the four-piece Colour Field crouches into low barbershop-quartet moans on a lush bed of acoustic guitars. A sorrowful cello and the insect chatter of castanets heighten the sense of bittersweet loss in the wistful, swaying "Castles in the Air." And in spite of its arrogant dismissal of the Sixties protest dream ("Brave words can be spoken/But bones will still be broken"), "Faint Hearts" is nifty acid pop, highlighted by stabbing electric guitar and the mock-carnival gaiety of Toby Lyons' organ.

Touches like that – not to mention the band's punky crank-up of the Question Mark and the Mysterians oldie "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" – make Virgins and Philistines a very attractive package. Too bad it's sealed with a sneer. (RS 460)

DAVID FRICKE