Album review: Teenage Fanclub

Four new songs apiece from Gerard Love, Raymond McGinley and Norman Blake pans out at less than one per person for each of the five years since Man Made emerged in 2005, but the result is one sumptuous new Teenage Fanclub album for these times.

The opening Sometimes I Don't Need To Believe In Anything burls seductively into the consciousness, building from a stunned electric rhythm into a swirl of brass and punchy harmonies. Love's bass then simply erupts in punk rock fashion out of this lush instrumental, floating off to set up Baby Lee's pop romp.

When I Still Have Thee might sound like a contrived title but it is an utterly irresistible song, stolen from some golden era of rock. "The Rolling Stones/Wrote a song for me/It's a minor song/In a major key," chirp the band, as though it is the most natural thing in the world to happen. Equally natural would be for Teenage Fanclub to be exalted as the best band in Britain, and this album the official soundtrack to the summer.

Download this: When I Still Have Thee, Dark Clouds

This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on May 25, 2010