by linda laban
september 19, 2004
TRASHCAN SINATRAS
"Weightlifting" (SpinART)
Three stars (out of 4)
Due to the vagaries of life, this is only the fourth album released by Scottish indie popsters the Trashcan Sinatras in 15 years.
But let's be thankful. This is a superb collection of sweet pop. It's the Byrds meet the Mamas & the Papas in pop beats and woozy romantic ballads, topped off with perfect vocals.
Highlights include the stunning "What Women Do To Men" and the dreamy epic "Country Air," but there's plenty more Coldplay's Chris Martin would love to have penned. (Tomorrow at the Paradise.)
Originally appeared in the Boston Herald. |
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by linda laban
september 22, 2004
Scottish indie-pop band the Trashcan Sinatras has been around for a decade and a half, creating the kind of sensitive Britpop that Travis adopted and Coldplay then took to the stars.
At the Paradise on Monday night, the band mixed songs from the just-released and already classic "Weightlifting," while fitting in numbers from its '90s albums.
Its blanketing wash of sincere-sweet jangly pop far eclipsed what many similar bands produce. Led by singer Frank Reader, the band pulled off a set of smoothly melodic midtempo songs without being anywhere near as dull as that formula can be.
That could have had something to do with Reader's powerful, classic singing voice, or the piercing resignation that seems to hang around the Trashcan Sinatras' songs with all the finality of a nuclear winter.
At times, alongside Reader's occasional strumming of an acoustic guitar, guitarists John Douglas and Paul Livingstonetched the words with rhythmic shimmer and swooning, soaring notes, while still playing with a charming understatement.
A pinnacle both on record and live with its delicate emotional tremor, "What Women Do To Men" was shatteringly fine. Like dead-end drug buddies, 1993's slow, shadowy "Hayfever" and the swooning, hazy "The Genius I Was" from 1996 came wrapped in a sotthing narcotic tragedy. "The Safecracker" and "The Therapist" made a slow steady plea with a chilly undertow, wrapped in gauzy pop that was so simple, yet so sweet.
(Trashcan Sinatras, at the Paradise, Boston, Monday night)
Originally appeared in the Boston Herald. |
