The Forums who tell you that there is no good music any more and we should all just concentrate on Big Star, Badfinger and Raspberries should be locked in a room and forced to listen to this album. Then ask them what isn't great about it.
If a band like Teenage Fanclub, who I adore, had released an album like A Colossal Waste Of Light, there would be red carpets and bunting and butterfly cakes and everything. With the added Bass Power of Vic Krummenacher, who is all over the album, there should be no stopping the tills from ringing.
This, surprisingly only their fourth, album feels much more Guitar Pop than usual and that really brings out the best in John Moen's vocals. The two opening songs show this to great effect. Crawling Off Your Pages has a splendid jangle to it and Swinging In The Circus has a vocal that would produce tears if it were not for all the hypnotic psych pop riffs.
They Said So has an urgency that the wall to wall riffs, some of which border on Goth, is top notch. Only So Much adds a Psych Pop Paisley feel to events and you realise this is no ordinary album. The title track is a haunting brooding beauty.
Pink Chair sounds very TFC, but there is way more going on in the background, very Glasgow, very very good. There is even time for a visit to Folkland with the Acoustic tenderness of Misuse. Lyin' In Your Tomb casts you back to the West Coast in 1967.
Finally as if to fully please me, there is the closing I Can't Be Told with its gripping riff which meanders into a Psych Pop fest. There seems a little less of the IRS Indie of days gone past in favour of a big melodic sound, but it works beautifully.
An album with 13 tracks has to fight hard to keep your attention. The time flies by here and at the end you head back to the opener. This is Pop Rock at its very very best. Big Riffs, plenty of my beloved Psych Pop. but performed with the catchiest of choruses. An absolute winner!
You can listen to and buy the album here.
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