*1/2 Mazzy Star

AMONG MY SWAN

(Capitol)

The dead can't dance to this -- the music's too slow. On Among My Swan, Mazzy Star vocalist Hope Sandoval (she of the pretty, bulimic whisper) and guitarist David Roback (of the slow-strummed, medicated lullaby) take their sound experience to where it's never been before: the realm of the completely comatose. She Hangs Brightly and So Tonight That I Might See teetered beautifully on the brink of tranquillity; Among My Swan slumbers, hushed mostly by Sandoval's jaded, bittersweet vocals. The ethereal flow present on Mazzy Star's most alluring earlier tracks (especially "Hallah," "She's My Baby," and "Sweet Mary Silence") is replaced by careless instrumentation (the Dylan harmonica on "Flowers In December"), goofy, space-aged sound effects (the glitzy moog phasers on "Umbilical"), and Sandoval's empty, tired voice (crushing each track of this exhausting record). It appears to have been recorded from the back of a long, dark cave, somewhere east of Depression.

-- Jonathan Vena