January 10 and a contender for album of the year already
Stone Ghost Collective: Unrequited Lovesongs (Shark Batter)
It was kindly suggested to me by a friend and some-time colleague that I should post more here than merely the reviews I do for the Sunday Herald. Given my previous blogging inertia, I’d say: don’t hold your breath. Still …
ONLY a total chancer would start wittering on about albums of the year before February was out, right? Let alone January. Then again, I think I was probably right about The Unwinding Hours. And while Stone Ghost Collective’s Unrequited Lovesongs doesn’t move me to quite the same giddy passion, it’s probably something a lot more people will adore — if they come across it, of course.
I’ve written elsewhere about Borders-based Shark Batter records. The problem with bigging up small labels is it starts to sound like you’re being all indier-than-thou; trust me, I’m not. This is an album to melt any heart, with an old-fashioned beauty about it that recalls myriad magical melodicists. Alan Morrison, the excellent chap who commissions those Sunday Herald reviews from me, pointed up Brian Wilson, the Flaming Lips, Teenage Fanclub and Take That in his own review (which I’d love to link to but which doesn’t seem to be online), and he’s absolutely right.
You’re probably not going to come across this on display in your local soon-to-be-closed-down HMV. But you can listen online to the whole thing (I think) here. And I hope you will.
