It's been five years since Julian Cope, the former leader of the Teardrop Explodes, has had a full-length album out in America. Saint Julian reintroduces him as an artist of stature: self-invented, self-assured, ready to take on the world. Given the religious allusions that crop up on this album and Cope's titular sainthood, the words second coming don't seem entirely out of place.

Fully...

A plain acoustic guitar strums as Julian Cope announces Jehovahkill's opening cut, "Soul Desert"; the bass goes thud, you hear papers rustling, then Cope begins: "I was lost and loveless in your soul desert/I was packed and kicking into your alien land." The effect is straight from the one-take "Las Vegas Basement," the sad-eyed closing track from Cope's last album, Peggy Suicide...