There’s nothing wrong with growing old disgracefully, bucket lists or mid-life crises, but the scope for having any of these seems to have narrowed in the last few years, with fun for people getting older being snuffed out – as well as it has been for everyone else.
The title of Teenage Fanclub’s thirteenth album is a direct reflection of that truth, a rejection of the sloganeering, novelty shop gift shop approach to getting along that trivialises. Mostly put together during a fourteen day stint in the Black Bay Studio on Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides, the location’s timeless setting – and the discovery of a former church organ – are ingredients of it heard and unheard respectively.
Musically the quintet again pursue the bittersweet trails of 2023’s Nothing Lasts Forever – opener There Was You gives up the darkness before the dawn “I was broken and loosе/with my head in the noose” while musically never reaching that level of jeopardy. The harmonious background of the (Near) title track, Over and Over and The Same Air may find listeners seeking out points of difference, happily to be found here in Tomorrow People’s Moog noodling and especially the psychedelic country of Somewhere To Land. Wary of the lies they tell us yes, but as Do Not Dare To Dream shows, Teenage Fanclub aren’t having a midlife crisis worth getting a Harley Davidson for – yet.
You can read a full review here.
