Postcard from the "Maiko Girls of Kyoto" collection, 1952
Not too long ago, I was marveling at the ability of Scottish band Teenage Fanclub to work together as a unit - I was watching a not-too-old YouTube clip of the band playing their '91 single "The Concept", and I was impressed that they could pull off the song's impressive guitar-and-harmonies attack together so cohesively. As a band with three songwriters, their success can rely heavily on cohesiveness; their last album, 2005's Man-Made worked as well as it did in spite of lacking any clear "hits" because each of the band's contributors carried his share of the weight. Even the band's weakest songwriter, lead guitarist Raymond McGinley, delivered a great song on Man-Made, the sweet piano ballad "Only With You". This set me up for a shock when I heard their new one Shadows - it might be the most lopsided album they've released.
People have been comparing Shadows to '70s soft-rock bands like Bread and America, and this comparison has some merit, but aren't there any UK groups from that period that you could use instead? Stealers Wheel, maybe? Anyway, the band relies on acoustic arrangements on the majority of the songs, with some stately string arrangements and folky embellishments - not too dissimilar from 2000's underrated Howdy. But the thing that stands out to me is that two of the band's songwriters don't really show up here. My usual favorite, bassist Gerard Love, turns in one good song ("Shock and Awe") and three decent ones. McGinley drags the whole album down by giving us one decent song and three boring-as-all-hell ones. His lilting waltz-time "Live With the Seasons" would be a stand-out on the album, but McGinley's voice has been reduced to a sqeaky croak at this point and can't compete with with the still-sweet vocals of Love and Norman Blake.
Speaking of Blake, it's a good thing that he contributes a third of the songs on Shadows, because they're basically the only highlights to be had. From the standout soft-rock single "Baby Lee" to the piano pop of "Dark Clouds", Blake brings hooks and sweet melodies to his songs that save the album from mediocrity. His songs sound fresher somehow - it may be because he's working with some outside collaborators like Euros Childs of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. I wouldn't call Shadows a top-tier Teenage Fanclub record, but some smart sequencing and a very strong showing from Norman Blake keep it from being a low point in their impressive discography.
"Baby Lee" by Teenage Fanclub
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