Scottish indie supremos The Delgados have gone all pop on their fifth album. Eschewing the lush instrumentation and orchestration of their previous two LPs, this time around they’re concentrating on soaring harmonies, simpler arrangements and melodies so hummable they should come with a warning: the listener is liable to drive everyone in close proximity to distraction by repeating them all day long.
Opener ‘I Fought The Angels’ isn’t a vast departure, Emma Pollock’s sweet voice to the fore above a mixture of gently chiming guitars and mildly insistent drums. Second track, ‘Is This All That I Came For?’ is something of a gear-shift, with the boys taking over vocal duties as The Delgados come across like a Ben Folds Five tribute band, and sounding remarkably good at it, complete with four-part vocal harmonies. Along with the brilliant ‘Get Action’, this is the kind of wistful melody most bands would pawn their image consultant for and is near perfect left-field guitar pop. Songs like ‘Everybody Come Down’ and the Beach Boys homage of ‘Girls Of Valour’ similarly shimmer with exuberance.
Just in case you thought they were getting too conventional, their use of unusual, ahem, instrumentation should set your mind at rest. Irn Bru cans (‘Sink Or Swim’), stage weights (‘Come Undone’) and empty flight cases (‘Now And Forever’) all serve as percussion instruments. And tracks like the eerily awkward ‘Bits Of Bone’, with its military drum tattoo, and the closing choral ‘Now & Forever’ ensure that they can’t be accused of letting their more experimental side lapse.
For the last four years or so, The Delgados have been Scotland and pop music’s best kept secret, but hopefully Universal Audio will bring the magical musical vision of Alun Woodward, Stewart Henderson, Emma Pollock and Paul Savage to the mainstream audience it deserves. File under Subtle Classic.