Reverend and the Makers

Mirrors

Cooking Vinyl

Over-hype has cursed many a band, but rarely as far into their career as the dogged chaps in Reverend and the Makers. The fifth album from the needlessly prolific Sheffield band, is apparently their "magnum opus", according to Carl Barat of the Libertines, while Noel Gallagher, who has championed the band with support slots on tours by Oasis and his High Flying Birds, says that is "sounds like nothing I've heard since the great concept albums of the 60's."

Of course Mirrors has absolutely nothing at all in common with Village Green Preservation Society or Tommy, although it is hard not admire its joie de vivre, possibly down to the fact that the band went to Jamaica to record it. They took the usual familiar basket of Brit-pop-through-the-ages influences in their baggage though, and cheerfully recycle them as usual, but without the panache that The Jam or Super Furry Animals once brought to the task. And why lyricist Jon McClure's contributions merit publication as a volume of verse is quite baffling.

The review of this disc in the NME included the wonderfully measured phrase: "Mirrors is as inspired as Reverend And The Makers have ever been". Or are ever likely to be, many might want to add.

Keith Bruce