Moody resignation, superb guitar hooks and shuffling beats characterise the impressive opener 'It's Not As Far To Fall', while 'The Gleaners' serves up bright indie pop that understands the importance of being resourceful, inspired by an 1857 painting of the same name that depicts peasants making a simple living from the land. The sleeve notes even reference 'The Wombles' and their ability to make use of everyday things thrown away by man. The driving electro flavours and spacey synths of 'Light From A Dead Star' provide the musical accompaniment to thoughts about the shoddy treatment of animals, its chorus making the message pretty clear: "if you want to save the world stop eating meat".
The slightly unconvincing 'Children Of The Sixties, Children Of The Seventies' is an urgent indie-rave rallying cry against complacency and apathy, with an underlying acknowledgement of the lack of protest in popular music. The stripped down acoustic, jazz-infused 'Not Small, Just Far Away' fails to make much of an impression compared to the brilliant, addictively tuneful Northern Soul-tinged 'My Anger', which charms and intrigues in effortless fashion, providing the album's finest moment. Elsewhere, the high reaching 'Punctuation' grows through a short series of tastily melodic movements before 'The Dolphins' warns of the dangers of overfishing and bleeding the world dry, setting the verses to cool, spaced out funk that promises more than its flaccid chorus delivers. It's set out in such a way, you can't be sure which is the chorus and which is the verse.
It's melodic indie pop music with a conscience, adding a refreshingly direct sense of confrontation and a sense of experienced wisdom to the sort of infectious tunes Spearmint have always excelled at. 6.7/10
Go HERE to listen to album track 'Punctuation'
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