Cotton-pickin' lo-fi blues

With an average age of 22, it just doesn't seem plausible that Gomez can get a Soul/ Delta Blues/Tex-Mex sound down as well as they do - until you have a look at their record collection. In there beside all the 1990s stuff and plenty of hip-hop records, you'll find Dr John, Tim Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Waits, Woody Guthrie, show tunes, The Grateful Dead and Marvin Gaye.

There is, though, nothing studied or unduly reverential about their sound: this, remember, is the band who recorded most of their first album in a garage without an engineer or a producer in sight. The album, Bring It On, still went multi-platinum and won them a Mercury Music Prize. And suddenly everybody was wondering why a bunch of white kids from Southport sounded like a full-on Swamp Delta experience.

A bit like Portishead in that it seemed that they came out of nowhere, Gomez were actually the subject of a fevered bidding war by record companies who had heard their initial seven-track demo, which featured their rare three-vocalist style. Perhaps more than the originality (or should that be "re-originality"), it was the slightly "purist" element of their music which impressed. They also had plenty of pan-generational appeal and are one of few bands around today (if not the only one) who can hit the front cover of both NME and Mojo.

It's stranger still when you consider that, until a few years ago, Gomez were die-hard metal fans who listened to nothing but Metallica and Slayer. If the musical distance they've travelled is one thing, then the speed at which they record (for a sound like theirs) is another: "We would have had this new album (Liquid Skin) finished quicker if the first one hadn't done so well," says the band's Tom Gray. "This record has a very different personality for us, it's a Band On The Run vibe more than a little group of friends in the garage. The first album didn't even have a marketing budget, but now that it has all been vindicated, it's quite nice to think of yourself as a songwriter and a professional musician."

The old adage about the problems with sophomore albums - you've got 20 years to write your first album, then just six months to write your second - has done for many a band over the years but there's no evidence of any difficulty on Liquid Skin. Recorded in a "proper" studio, the band has sustained the momentum nicely. If anything it is a more "serious" album: there are more changes of key and time signatures on this and overall a more rowdy rhythmic backing.

With song titles like Blue Moon Rising and Rosalita, the overall mood is still swamp funk/soul/blues but there is a more interesting choice of instrumentation (a fire extinguisher gets a credit). Basically it's another exercise in "cotton-pickin', lofi psychedelia for latter-day Cowboy Junkies".

Destined to shift more units than its predecessor, there is a danger that Gomez could become a Dire Straits for the late 1990s. But if they do end up being listened to on car stereo systems (while on the way to the squash court) more than anywhere else, it's not something they ever set out to achieve.

"There's a strange parallel between the world of politics and the world of pop," says Tom. "Politicians are careerist and musicians are careerist are well. They've all got their big strategy. All these bands you see who are really huge, they are career bands who've developed their art to a point where the point of it is just to be successful. I'm sure that's an attitude that has always been there, but if everybody's standard comes from that point of view, it's a bit like backing a horse, isn't it . . . "

Liquid Skin is on the Hut/Virgin label

Before setting off on a huge European tour as the invited support act for Morrissey, Dublin band Sack are staging a fund-raising concert (to pay for the petrol, basically) at the POD next Monday night. Loads of guests, star turns and who knows, maybe even a raffle, will be on the agenda. You should get there for 8 p.m.