Frank YangAs a genre/style, power-pop is not one that traditionally gets a lot of respect. Though its primary qualities of melody and harmony are essential facets of pretty much every style of music that can be hyphenated with “pop”, in its undiluted, guitar-driven form it can be far too easy to do middlingly and incredibly difficult to do well. And so even when you’re a band that does it masterfully, as Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub have for over twenty years, you still might not have more to show for it than confirmed cult status, an unwaveringly loyal fanbase and gigs booked into incredibly intimate venues. Come to think of it, that’s not so bad at all.
The Toronto chapter of that fanbase was out in force on Wednesday night for the first of two shows at the Horseshoe kicking off the band’s first North American tour in five years, in support of their ninth album Shadows. Like its predecessors in their discography, it doesn’t mess with the Fanclub formula, instead further refining it such that while they sound dramatically different from the quartet that burst into the scene with Bandwagonesque, they’re still very much the same band; just older, wiser and more inclined to use a single, clean guitar line whereas once they’d have let rip with a solo. Some might complain that their songs have gotten slower and quieter with each subsequent release – and this is true – but when a band’s strengths were always a tunefulness and almost supernatural ability to craft a pop song rather than rock out and those strengths are still very much intact, well there’s really no grounds to complain at all...
Photos: Teenage Fanclub, Rick Of The Skins @ The Horseshoe – September 22, 2010
MP3: Teenage Fanclub – “It’s All In My Mind”
MP3: Teenage Fanclub – “What You Do To Me”
MySpace: Teenage Fanclub
Spinner interviews The Vaselines about their first new record in forever, Sex With An X.
Drowned In Sound, The Liverpool Echo and State have feature pieces on Manic Street Preachers while NME finds out why Tim Roth graces the cover of their new record Postcards From A Young Man. It’s out next week.
British Sea Power’s Scott Wilkinson talks to Spinner about their new album, as yet untitled but due out in January 2011, and the Zeus EP which will precede it on October 4. The title track from said EP is available to download now.
MP3: British Sea Power – “Zeus”
Elbow’s Guy Garvey gives NME a status update on their new record, due out next year.
The Los Angeles Times and NPR talks to The xx; they’re at Massey Hall on September 29.
M.I.A. has a new video from /\/\/\Y/\ and it comes with its on URL and everything.
Video: M.I.A. – “Story To Be Told”
