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Vocally the tone is cool suave and - at least until

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Vocally, the tone is cool, suave and - at least until the later stages, when the full power gets going - one-coloured.For Act I, when the music-making is more subdued, she's upstaged by Alison Roddy's Micaela. Her dancing seduction of Don Jose may be a touch more ladette than Gypsy, but it certainly has the impact of irresistible force meeting all too easily movable object. This is a Carmen whose relish of anything in, or preferably out of, trousers is so infectious that you can just about accept the sidelining of her more philosophically libertarian aspects. Sudden bursts of energy stand out like flashes of full sunlight. One such is the arrival of Escamillo the matador, done up in a sharp suit like one of EastEnders' buffoon villains, but strongly projected by Peter Coleman-Wright in his first go at the part.

And the dramatic tension cranks up fully at the final fateful encounter of Carmen and Don Jose.There are other notable debuts in roles, starting with the Carmen of Sara Fulgoni. Another is the children's chorus, which blasts its way through the routine crowd bustle before the bullfight with late-night high spirits. It could be David Atherton's expansive conducting, which enjoys the score so much, it gets slower and slower, though the orchestra sounds well on it. Or it might be a new cast only starting to gel. Then again, this is the show's fourth revival by David Ritch, and the Spanish Civil War setting originally devised nine years ago by Jonathan Miller has inevitably taken on a familiarity within the house that undermines the shock factor for the audience.Whatever the reason, the experience isn't the intense directness you expect from Bizet's definitive version of operatic high drama. Perhaps it's the strangely subdued daylight, which seems to shroud the Andalucian glare in a heat haze. An unearthly torpor hangs over long stretches of ENO's latest Carmen. But, somewhere, lost a little in the white noise, is a rallying call for friendship and sanity amid a cynical and burnt-out, post-September 11 landscape.Could it be an aesthetic expression of the overdue politicisation of the youthful masses, or is it just a deceptive mirage, or simply the breathtaking effect of the projections on the wall? Touring to 14 July.

Then add in the lead singer's emulation of the voice of Liam Gallagher. Going back further, the combination of war imagery and psychedelic sounds is, scarily, reminiscent of Pink Floyd.If this sounds a bit disturbing, then perhaps it will be. And perhaps this is something more than a look: in January, their guitarist Jimmi Lawrence committed suicide in the studio while the band was in the latter stages of recording their debut album, The Lost Riots.This loss was registered in the band's opening chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" and in Herlihy's search for "the happy people" in the crowd. A disarming instrumental piece introduced the much-awaited material from their first album. Lead guitarist, Anthony Teaker, and violinist, Mike Siddell, cut through the wake of sound. As is the case with many avant-noise bands, they could perhaps do with some more variation in texture and dynamics - though in case we were dumbfounded by the sonar assault, the band concluded by dropping their instruments and inviting their friends to sing a rousing chant ("We are the hopeless mistakes: side by side/ Once more the broken hearted: side by side").Hope of the States confirmed with this live performance that they have a winning brew of laddish art: they distil the alt-folk and soundscape traditions showcased at this March and April's All Tomorrow's Parties festival into one band. Indeed, with their striped T-shirts, ratty hair and ruddy faces, the band look like washed-up sailors back from oblivion.

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