Doubt (1991)

Whoa what an intense record! With ''Trust Me,'' Doubt's first song, this English rock quintet throws an urgent cascade of drums, jagged guitar riffs, and raspy vocals at us. But Jesus Jones transcends this modern-rock formula to create a genre-bending album with something for everyone. Building on the college-radio success of their 1989 debut, Liquidizer, the band is now aiming toward the pop charts. Tracks like ''International Bright Young Thing'' are both melodic and — with their rolling bass lines — rather funky, while ''I'm Burning'' is a dirge-like cry of romantic need. Careful listeners (if they're not too busy dancing) will be impressed with the group's use of rap's sampling technique; they take snippets of a South African chorus, for example, and place it over their own percussion at the beginning of ''Who? Where? Why?'' Doubt is also literate without being dreary or smug. Celebrating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, lead singer Mike Edwards breathlessly sings, ''Right here, right now/There is no other place I wanna be/ Right here, right now/Watching the world wake up from history.'' Jesus Jones shows that British college-radio grads don't have to be gloomy. A

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