MY LATEST NOVEL
WOLVES (BELLA UNION)
4/5
FOR Scotland's next big thing . . . which is how they've have been touted for roughly the past six months . . . My Latest Novel are a decidedly strange proposition. They don't so much write songs as paint textures with their instruments. There are no real pop songs here, no three-minute indie workouts that would sound good on the dancefloor. Instead, there are songs which twist and turn, following their own tangents with a pleasing but occasionally frustrating disregard for the rules.
Comparisons to Belle And Sebastian have been made, but they're superficial at best, and revolve around the boy/girl harmonies and spoken word passages in west coast accents. My Latest Novel are somewhere else, though: halfway between the multi-instrumental reverie of Arcade Fire and the woozy, funereal beauty of their labelmates Dirty Three.
They're at their strongest when they let a groove lurch along, building momentum as it goes, until it hurtles headlong towards you, as on the gorgeous sixminute opening track Ghost In The Gutter.
Sister Sneaker, Sister Soul's plaintive violins have just enough windswept grandeur about them to be charming without being overdone; When We Were Wolves, meanwhile, is a brutal sea shanty dirge; you can almost see the entire band wearing eye patches in the studio.
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD:
Sister Sneaker, Sister Soul
STEVE ADEY
ALL THINGS REAL (PLAY/GRAND HARMONIUM)
4/5
IF you're a budding singer/songwriter, as Edinburgh-based Steve Adey is, it takes a certain amount of that wonderful thing, chutzpah, to cover not only Bonnie Prince Billy's I See A Darkness, but Bob Dylan's Shelter From The Storm, on your debut album.
Some would call it sheer folly.
The Bonnie Prince Billy cover sits in the shadows of Johnny Cash's own version, but Adey's reading of Shelter From The Storm (one of the highlights of Blood On The Tracks) turns Bob Dylan's fable into a languorous piano ballad which owes as much to Leonard Cohen and John Cale as it does to Saint Bob.
That Adey's own songs hold up in this context at all, let alone very well, should have him wiping his brow in relief.
On tracks like The Lost Boat Song and Evening Of The Day, Adey channels the spirit of Smog, minus Bill Callahan's caustic take on dysfunctional relationships; elsewhere, there are hints of the late Jeff Buckley's mournful tenderness.
Whether Adey's career will end up producing his own Shelter From The Storm . . . give him a decade and maybe the end of a great love . . . remains to be seen. That he might be capable, though, is reason enough to start listening to him now.
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD:
Evening Of The Day
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article