Album review: Malcolm Ross and the Low Miffs

Malcolm Ross was the musical mercury of Postcard Records' Sound Of Young Scotland, flowing smoothly from Josef K to Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. This collaboration with Glasgow young guns The Low Miffs raises the temperature to that of those heady times.

Dear Josephine, with gymnastic vocals from Low Miff Leo Condie, and a guitar break to turn your face inside out, reinvigorates that old jingly jangly motif, while also injecting genuine joie de vivre to the opening Cressida.

Featuring some quite brilliantly controlled playing weaving lovely patterns around singing that is part Associates, part Sparks, this is sonic sunshine to light up the darkest room.

Ross is a revelation, delivering a smoky understated vocal on the quiet menace of The Back Midnight, a jazzy walk on the wild side with a Tarantino twang. Mankind is a bit of a rock and roll cabaret wafting up the steps from a Belgian basement, a staggering waltz with gruff saxophone and sharp snappy lyrics that crackle like a long-lost Alex Harvey tune. With added drama, if you can imagine such a thing.

More jaunty is The Man Who Took On Love (And Won), with the lovely line "Love's last reserves are more than I deserve". Best of all is the strutting swagger of Kind Of Keen, big on eerily atmospheric keyboards adorning a road song at the junction of Highway 51 and the M8.

Download this: Kind Of Keen