Perfect Houseplants - Snap Clatter - The Times

Although the album title does accurately describe some aspects of this UK quartet's overall sound - particularly Martin France's drumming, which has always eschewed driving staightahead jazz swing in favour of the kind of percussive embellishment associated with "world" music - it fails to convey the full range of their music.

As they have done since their formation in 1993, the band switsh easily between tangos, folkish plaints and bustling jazz, providing an unfussily adaptable outlet for both the multi-textured, quirkily ambitious compositions of the pianist/accordionist Huw Warren and the more immediately accessible material by saxophonist Mark Lockheart and bassist Dudley Phillips. This varied album has its roots, like those of a growing number of UK bands, deep in European rather than transatlantic traditions.