by Stewart Mason The Monochrome Set's final album before the extended sabbatical of their career (they'd spent most of the second half of the '80s dormant before returning with 1990's Dante's Casino), 1996's Trinity Road shows that it was about time for Bid and the boy to give it a rest for a while. There are a few good songs, especially the jaunty "The Mousetrap" (concerning the stardom dreams of a shy schoolboy, set to a Kinks-like melody) and the ironically titled "Bliss," a cutting portrait of a troubled marriage, but the album as a whole is listless, with songs less melodically rich and lyrically intriguing than usual, and everyone seems to be going through the motions. ("Flamen Dialis" is basically a rewrite of the far superior "Mind Field," from 1992's Charade.) Not exactly bad -- Bid is too canny a craftsman for that -- Trinity Road is still the weakest album of the Monochrome Set's long and productive career. Points for the song title "The Wurst Is Yet to Come," however.