Attic Lights

ATTIC LIGHTS 

Super De Luxe (Elefant)

Apparently singer Kev Sherry is the second cousin of David Byrne. There is, however, no relation between the music of Talking Heads and that of Sherry’s sextet. Rather they share the same love of Big Star, The Cyrkle, Beatles, Beach Boys and The Byrds as fellow Glaswegians Teenage Fanclub whose Francis Macdonald produced both their 2008 debut and, following their departure from Island,  this belated follow-up.

As you’d expect from the references, there’s loads of chiming guitars, glorious harmonies and 60s sensibility songs that make you feel like bouncing down the street, punching the air, glad to be alive. They’ve also enfolded recent immersion in Motown and classic soul, evident on the disco hints of Future Bound and Stay Before You Leave, while Say You Love Me has an air of the Bay City Rollers’ best terrace sawyers mingled with 50s doo wop, Mona Lisa opens like some ABBA pop classic before  heading into a Harpers Bizarre sunshine pop time warp, and Gabrielle rounds off the collection in vintage 70s McCartney mood.

It doesn’t all work, the jittery pop Hit And Miss takes a vague stab at Northern Soul and lives up to its title, Don’t You  is unmemorable while woozy ballad Lock Me Out seriously drags. Disappointingly too, Orbison merely namechecks the Big O rather than being a full on tribute, but its Raspberries’ power pop offers ample compensation and, taken as a whole, the album is welcome evidence that the lights are still on and there’s someone home. 

Mike Davies