Once hailed as the second coming of
Big Star
, the trio of singer/songwriters who make up
Teenage Fanclub
--
Norman Blake
,
Gerard Love
, and
Raymond McGinley
-- have attained the status of something more along the lines of a Scottish
Crosby, Stills & Nash
. Which is to say they are a band of equals with all three members consistently cranking out song after song of well-written melodic
rock
that references such icons of the genre as
the Byrds
the Beach Boys
Badfinger
, and yes
. With 2005's
Man-Made
can
Tortoise
be added to that list? Well, sort of. Recorded at
frontman
John McEntire
's
Soma
studio in Chicago with
McEntire
at the controls and sometimes the keys,
is both all that one might hope a paring of classicist
power pop
and
avant-garde
post-rock
could be, and then, depending on which end of the
indie rock
spectrum you're coming from, perhaps slightly less. Upon hearing that the notoriously homebound boys from Glasgow were going to board a plane to the States, and enter the mad science lab of the man known for odd time signatures and archaic keyboards it raised expectations -- perhaps unfairly -- that the resulting album would be something unexpected and maybe even revolutionary. However, as is the tradition with most
craftsmen, the general approach is to aim for the perfect
pop
song each time out, resulting in albums that are rarely disappointing for fans, but which can rarely claim innovation or edginess. Happily,
lives up to this tradition and is as good an album as any
has made since
Grand Prix
. That said, given the high expectations of working with a maverick iconoclast like
, even a longtime fan might be somewhat disappointed that the album isn't more than yet another solid
Fanclub
release. Though
's production is subtle, his unique aesthetics are definitely apparent on
as odd keyboards and sundry other inevitably electronic apparatuses bubble and bleep just below the surface of fuzzed-out guitars, chugging basslines, and layered vocals. Primarily, the album takes off where the new tracks recorded for the band's stellar 2003 retrospective,
Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds: A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub
, left off. To these ends,
Love
"Time Stops"
"Fallen Leaves"
once again find the sweet-voiced bassist delving into sun-soaked
Left Banke
meets
Moody Blues
territory. Similarly,
McGinley
"Feel"
evinces a hang-loose '70s West Coast vibe that sounds something like
Roger McGuinn
fronting
Hotel California
-era
Eagles
, and if
ever had any
shoegaze
tendencies
Blake
reveals all with the blissful and Hammond-happy
"Slow Fade."
While nobody could accuse
of taking huge creative risks, more often than not the tracks on
do resemble something along the lines of '70s
soft rock
group
America
backed by
Stereolab
-- which is a very cool thing. ~ Matt Collar