Mercury Rev: Mean Fiddler, London

IT SEEMS LIKE A SMALL ETERNITY since indie America last puked up a truly ear-boggling band. The innovators of the late Eighties have become a set of bearings for new groups, rather than signposts pointing into the uncharted beyond. Most new activity takes the form of finding a slightly different combination of the same ingredients (in the USA the spectrum is Sonic Youth/ Buttholes/ Dinosaur, in the UK it's MBV/Loop/Cocteaus). After a while, the distinctions get so subtle, so slight, so ultimately unrewarding that they're not worth following.