Without wishing to be further accused of tartan xenophobia, it again gives me pleasure to find musical proof that Scotland is still the place to be if you have a guitar in your hand and a song in your heart. Said proof is to be found in the distillation of the Scottish guitar pop sound – and the last fifty years of pop music – that is betwixt the eleven songs that comprise “A Glasgow Band” by Ewan Cruickshanks.
Perhaps as a result of that very attempt to distil the last 50 years of pop music into just one album, “A Glasgow band” does suffer from a certain lack of focus with each of the songs bouncing merrily off any wall they happen to hit. That said, such a random approach does mean that everyone and his hamster will likely find something here to please their ears. “Dreams”, for example, is a sublime take on the jingle jangle summer pop song that simply cries out for sunshine and a pretty girl while “Superman” reverberates with the sonic essence of a post Big Country Scotland and “CAAGB” advertises the fact that even the youth of today can be persuaded to buy a Glitter Band album from their local charity shop.
Taking everything to be the sum of what it is seems to be the driving force behind “A Glasgow Band” and, because of that, the best thing about this album is that listening to it is a genuinely uplifting experience. I doubt that I will saying that about very many albums in 2018.