Teenage Fanclub - Shadows

Bandwagonesque (1991) and Grand Prix (1995): two albums, both by Glaswegians Teenage Fanclub, which together constitute an epochal moment in joyous pop music. That no other album quite matches the glory of these two is of little consequence. Grand Prix alone is almost perfect. The band's meticulous fusion of My Bloody Valentine's noise, Neil Young's guitar work and Big Star's sunshine pop remains a watershed moment in songwriting history.

Shadows is the first Teenage Fanclub album in five years and happily, it wipes the floor with its predecessor, 2005's Man Made. In keeping with the Fannie's protocol, it is a balanced mix of songs by Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love, and as always, Blake's songs shine just that little bit brighter. Here it's in Baby Lee, another rolled-gold TFC hit: a little bit cheeky, just earnest enough to be meaningful and catchy as all hell. And Dark Clouds is playful enough to warrant its too-cute, fiddle-heavy production. Yet the Bowie-esque The Past loses its momentum within its polish, and Shock And Awe flounders without distinction. That said, When I Still Have Thee overcomes its pretentious title by being impossibly nice. The folk-waltz of Live With The Seasons is also impeccable, and the almost Beach House sunshine of Sweet Days Waiting and The Back Of My Mind actually work. It's not the Fannies' best - since toning down the Neil Young and the MBV, the band was become one-sided - but it's a nice side to keep.

The New Pornographers - Together

Put bluntly, The New Pornographers copped a lot of shit for their last release, Challengers, their 'mellow' album with a tonality that somehow escaped their power-pop fan base. It was by no stretch a bad record; if anything it was merely bland and smaller than its predecessors: Mass Romantic, Electric Version and Twin Cinema, three independently brilliant albums that each served to better the last.

Perhaps to avoid a similar fate, they're come out all guns blazing with Together, embracing that all-in quality so valuable to their first records. Neko Case is at her heady finest in The Crash Years, an earthy acoustic number up on the perils of First World economic depression. The graduating riffs of My Shepard build perfectly with jolting drums and moody strings, while Dan Bejar's three song credits play nicely against main-man Newman's more complex tendencies.

From the first dirtied strings of Moves to the flowing, upbeat keys of Your Hands (Together) it has all the markings of great New Pornos: the seminal harmonies, the jaunty acoustics, the dramatic twee of naturally suburban pop. It is more daring, more developed and at the same time, more relaxed.

Most important of all though, after the somewhat lacking Challengers, Together remembers all that's truly great about this band: their ability to build and destroy entire structures before the first chorus and lift songs to entirely different places with gorgeous melodies and wildly beautiful arrangements. This is smart pop music, beautiful and quirky with foundations set in simple stone.

Love Is All - Two Thousand and Ten Injuries

Love Is All’s first two albums (2006’s Nine Times That Same Song and 2008’s A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night) were thrilling noise pop records that drew from post-punk experimentalism, twee pop sweetness, and punk rock energy, added hooky songs and rambunctious performances, and ended up making a glorious racket. It’s nice to report that their third album, Two Thousand and Ten Injuries, is the equal to the first two in quality, that it delivers the same level of thrills, and is packed from to top to bottom with excellent songs and fiery playing. The band took a more relaxed approach to writing and recording the album and it shows in the slightly more precise arrangements, the songs that sound more constructed than hastily slapped together, and the clearer production. That’s not to say the intensity level has dropped, only that they have refined and focused their approach a bit. Where they used to clatter, now they might smolder, and where Josephine Olausson would have howled, now she might croon a little more. It’s a welcome move toward sophistication that works because the underlying passion and drive that are the group’s strength are never far from the surface. For every song like "Never Now" that scales back the energy in favor of arrangement, there are songs like "Early Warnings" or "Kungen" that rattle and roll like early Love Is All. The crisp and punchy production gives these rockers an extra kick that was sometimes lost in the ramshackle production of their debut and in the reverbed murk of A Hundred Things. The care given the sound really comes to light on "The Birds Were Singing with All Their Might; the synths, saxes, and Olausson’s vocals combine to give the song a majestic feel that brings to mind early New Order with Clare Grogan (of Altered Images) singing. The album is filled with great moments like this, and plenty of songs that will be the highlights of summer 2010 mixtapes. Many bands start to lose their way around the time of their third album, but on Two Thousand and Ten Injuries Love Is All sound better than ever and well-positioned to keep making smart, hooky, passionate records for a long time to come.

Phrazes For The Young - Julian Casablancas

With no new output forthcoming from The Strokes just yet, fans are having to settle for the numerous side projects, the most anticipated of which is surely the debut solo offering from frontman and creative driving force, Julian Casablancas. Opening song, Out Of The Blue, illustrates a dichotomy that occurs throughout, as cynical lyrics disguise what is actually a musically celebratory and largely radio-friendly album. "Somewhere along the way, my hopefulness turned to sadness/ Somewhere along the way, my sadness turned to bitterness," Casablancas grumbles in his deliciously languid slur. But, just when the tone seems to have been set, he leaps into a rousing, joyous chorus. Phrazes For The Young oftens references the '80s. The synth-drenched Left And Right In The Dark even threatens to burst into Ultravox's Dancing With Tears In My Eyes before reining itself in and ending like something from Strokes' debut It This It.

With eight tracks totalling 40 minutes, the album could have done with some fat-trimming and one senses there may ahve been a handful of three-minute pop classics here had Casablancas shown more self-discipline. This is a minor quibble though and there are enough surprising left turns to keep things interesting, like the laid-back soul of 4 Chords Of The Apocalypse and the country influenced Ludlow St. While such deparatures validate Casablancas' side project as worthwhile and necessary, the songs that fall closer to that distinctive Strokes sound are actually the highlights. So, no matter how good Phrazes For The Young might be - and it is good - it ultimately leaves the listener longing for a new Strokes album. Still, as a stopgap, this'll do nicely.

6.5/10