Like them or hate them, the gents behind Tooth are ideas men. Some bands go on for years without having as many ideas as Tooth manage to cram onto a single album, and when that album happens to be a double album, we're talking about an embarrassment of ideas. Of course, not all ideas are good, which is the proverbial thorn in Tooth's heel, but you're never going to make it big with your ideas unless you try them out, are you now?

"Mudlarking" is the new album from these three, and it's been a few years in the making. That time has not been idly spent though, with the various band members working on side projects here and there, and meticulously constructing this release. The result is eighteen sprawling, lush pieces of music that sit somewhere between Tortoise, Manitoba and even some of the less abrasive elements of The Mars Volta.

The first disc of the set is the more dramatic and epic in scope of the two, opening with the panoptic majesty of Paris Shades, before getting into a lush instrumental groove with Avoiding The Road To Recovery. Five O'Clock samples what sounds like a radio broadcast from during the war, before moving onto a trip-hop like groove.

On disc two, we find Ballad of the Expendable, which starts off with ambient noise and drums before an echoing piano and a twisted bassline come into play. Dawn of the Duck begins with some tribal-sounding percussion before delving into a dubby section featuring brass, vocals, and a bouncing bassline. The intriguingly titled Sorry Cake brings space rock into the mixture, opening with a sound that sounds like a spaceship engine powering up, before the organs kick in for what could be a Pink Floyd B-side from the early 90s.

Tooth are not going to be for everybody, and if you can't stomach the thought of a whole double-album without a single well-written lyric or piece of insightful songwriting, then maybe this album isn't for you. The ambience and general laid-back nature of some of the tracks might make the individual pieces sound insubstantial to some people, but if you're just looking for some lush-sounding grooves and melodies in the fashion of a tripped-out version of Tortoise, then this album will fit the bill perfectly.