As a general rule, I don't like coffeeshops. Too many 17- year- olds (and worse, 38- year- old hangers- on) sitting around fooling themselves into believing they're smarter than the rest of us. If that's so, why do they pay five bucks for a latte, then go back for two refills? In recent years, coffeeshops-- like Gaps and gourmet grocery stores-- have annoyed me to no end by marketing their own CDs. Now all these wanking consumers can take the banal lounge- jazz they hear over the in- house JBL sound systems home with them. Whoo.

You've probably heard the music: middling grooves from suburban groovers that strive to strike a balance between Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew- era Miles Davis, and make it sound like the roadhouse band on "Twin Peaks." And they all think they're poets. That's why it pisses me off even more when I hear music that sounds like it belongs in a coffeeshop... and I kind of like it.

Australia's Eighty Mile Beach has all the trappings of latte music. Vocalist Beth Custer rarely changes key and barely sings above a whisper. Her listless delivery crawls over pseudo- poetic mumbo jumbo as if she just learned to talk last week. But, she somehow makes it sound good. It's as if she's the anti- Beth Gibbons: all the drama and despair has been drawn out of her, and now she's willing to just let the cards fall any which way.

It also helps that her musical backing, provided by herself (clarinets, keyboards, trumpet and glass harmonics) and Christian Jones (drum programming, sampling, turntables, bass and guitars), is also the antithesis to Portishead's downbeat symphonics. Rather than the sharp trumpet bursts, Eighty Mile Beach lets loose a longing clarinet or muted trumpet. Rather than a clangy keyboard, Eighty Mile Beach prefer a cool, Nick Cave- esque arrangement. I'm not saying it's better than Portishead, but with all the Bristol Sound fakers coming out of the woodwork lately, it's nice to see a band pay homage by doing something new with the sound.

The interplay of horns and clarinet combined with a rickety guitar riff on "Dr. Boleda de Manzanitas" is subtle, yet it keeps your attention. The tropical samples and slow calypso beat of "There Are No Right Angles Found in Nature" meld with a warm organ and Custer's slithering vocals for a song that's actually as sexy as it wants to be. And following right behind, the title track manages to be somewhat playful, albeit at a sloth- like pace.

There are a couple of tracks that aren't as intriguing, but the only real failure on Inclement Weather is "Hempen Homespun," a "legalize weed" tome that sounds like a million other "legalize weed" tomes. It's the kind of bullshit "It's a travesty" argument that is made by people who are obsessed with pot, who are often the same people that spend too much time in coffeeshops. It must have something to do with sitting around doing nothing, and thinking that nothing amounts to something. It usually doesn't, but for Eighty Mile Beach, it sometimes does.

-Shan Fowler