I'm sure the backlash crowd, disappointed that they couldn't find fault with the big comeback album, Coming Up, will be lying in wait to dismiss Head Music. The band provided some ammo: the title track is a bit tired ("Gimme head ... music," indeed) and "Can't Get Enough" sounds like a Tin Machine outtake. Similar attempts just sound big and dumb.

But to banish this album to the resell bin so quickly would be big mistake, because Head Music has a bunch of winners tucked away. "She's In Fashion" is so immediately catchy, so dead on, that it knocked back any initial doubts. "She's as similar as you can get," Anderson observes between hand claps and the wa-wa guitar, "to the shape of a cigarette." "Savoir Faire" is a nice piece of power pop, too, full of hooks, guitars and itself. And the mid-temp "Asbestos," with its hip-hop keyboards and jazzy horns, slinks along nicely, painting a languid picture of "suburban girls making eyes at suburban boys."

Ignore the inserted beeps and gurgles; this is a rock album in a great tradition. No, it doesn't break any new ground for the band or the genre. But Suede has managed to sound both modern and rooted at the same time -- a nice trick.