The morphing of one of Britain's original purveyors of trip-hop began some years ago with their Fragments of Freedom LP, led by its pop-chart friendly Rome Wasn't Built in a Day. The following album, Charanga, was more low key.

But now, with original vocal singer Skye Edwards gone, The Antidote is hard to pigeonhole.

With unfortunate old Hong Kong Tourism Board campaign associations, poppy opener Wonders Never Cease reminds instantly of Rome and shows that current vocalist Daisy Martey can sound exactly like Edwards. But Ten Men, next up, delves into pop rock reminiscent of 4-Non Blondes. Although Everybody Loves a Loser is a slice of trad trip-hop Morcheeba, enhanced with brass and angelic backing vocals, Martey's range proves much wider than Edwards' predictably cool delivery. Duetting harmoniously with Rob Mullender on two tracks and coming on new wave rock chick in People Carrier, Martey carries a few songs, such as the last-mentioned, beyond the mediocrity of their melody.

However, a talented new vocalist and musical style switching alone don't make an album great. Morcheeba fans have a right to expect more from the songwriting. Founder band members Paul and Ross Godfrey, proven production wizards, who play a handful of string, keyboard and percussion instruments, were obviously not too fired up when getting this together. It's listenable but tedious at times.