POP

THE GO- BETWEENS Oceans Apart (Lo-Max) coo.

Unlike their two excellent comeback albums of the noughties. 2000's Friends of Rachel Worth and 2002's Bright Yellow, Bright Orange. all pretence of any kind of songwriting partnership between Grant McLennan and Robert Forster has now been dropped. This fine new album from Australia's purest (and most overlooked) ageing pop exports kicks off with Forster's shimmering Here Comes the City'. McLennan quickly picking up the baton with the slightly more delicate. introspective ‘Finding You' (both concern themselves with anonymous journeys to the heart of something darker). And this is how it goes thrOughout this marvellous album. One talent lays down the theme and the other answers. things reach heights glimpsed in their seminal 80s albums Tallulah and 76 Lovers in three extraordinarily evocative tunes of rural. psychotic redemption: MCLennan's 'Boundary River‘ and Forster's ‘Darlinghurst Nights' and ‘M0untains of Delray'. Almost unsurpassable.

(Paul Dale)

COUNTRY HOBOTALK

Notes on Sunset (Circular) 0..

Edinburgh outfit Hobotalk's major label debut was an overly slick and glossy affair. but this local indie follow-up is a much more relaxed and stripped down affair.

the result being that singer Marc Pilley's simple. heartfelt country tunes and ever-more impressively soulful voice are allowed room to breathe. The band still linger too closely to their influences ~- opener ‘Little Light' and 'Who Are YOu Now' are beautiful piano-led affairs. but they sound like outtakes from After the Gold Rush. That minor gripe aside, this is an accomplished and gently uplifting collection from a band maturing into a fine countrified prospect. (Doug .Johnstone)

METAL

NINE INCH NAILS

With Teeth (lnterscope) I...

Trent Reznor was the industrial metal pioneer. He created some seminal albums in his wake (Pretty Hate Machine and Downward Spiral). then descended into megalomania and drug-fuelled chaos. the cult of NIN breeding uncheckedinlns absence. After a five year absence he's emerged with his most radio-friendly unit shifter to date. It opens with the shiversome ‘All the Love in the World' before descending into a jackhammer. machine-infested hell. It's a roaring. defiant. wholly accessible hell. Reznor rips his SOUI open with every note yet this still sounds like an album aching for a Stadium to fulfil its blackened potential. (Henry Northmore)

PSYCH FOLK LUCKY LUKE Partick the Survivor (lnvadal 0...

Lucky Luke have been floating around the fringes of Glasgow's

music scene for some time now. evolving from a lo-fi bedroom band into an eight piece ‘wonky folk' collective.

What's immediately striking ab0ut this. their long-awaited debut. is the deft combination of Fairport Convention balladiy and scratchy Velvet Underground guitar. Then there are the esoteric tetiches: swirling flute. scraping Violin and the ceaselessly inventive drumming of Scatter's Alex Nielson.

Yet it still has everything you'd want from a folk record: lovely melodies. dark laments and hearty sea shanties. One to charm fraNled old hippies and freak-folk kids alike. (Stewart Smith)

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

THE NEW SINGLE OUT MAY 23rd 2 x LTD COLOURED VINYL 7” ENHANCED CD 81 DOWNLOAD

09.06 GLASGOW DMU 10.06 ABERDEEN Lemon Tree 1 1.06 DUNDEE Read "

ROCK

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Devils & Dirt (Columbia) 0.000

ComparisOns may be made with fellow elder statesmen Dylan and Young but the images you get here are undoubtedly

wwdmnsimdd . 'mskw MAImmnomd 10cm“

Springsteen visions of desolate. heartbroken America. As the stories unlurl their characters take us on a ride across the big country from the Wild West l‘Black Cowboys'). to the seedy South (‘Reno'l to sitting on a front porch in the lazy. dusty South on the beautifully fallsetto'd ‘All I'm Thinking About' via the foreign war/one of the title track. Accompanied by minimal bass. percussion and keyboards the Boss takes us on a trip though the heait of America while reaffirming his position as one of the greatest songwriters of our time. (James Abel)

‘3 CU Max

200$) THE LIST 73