weightlifting album review

dallas music guide

by torr leonard
november 28, 2004

Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting

When Scottish indie-pop band The Trash Can Sinatras burst onto the scene in 1990 they picked up right where The Smiths had left off a few years prior. With jingle-jangle guitars and a lyricist who knew his way around thesaurus, they seemed to be one of the brightest hopes for the future of guitar pop. With their first two albums “Cake” and “I’ve Seen Everything” they found success on both sides of the Atlantic. Can you believe there was a time when songs as fey as “Only Tongue Can Tell”, “Obscurity Knocks” and “Hayfever” got airplay on u.s. “Modern Rock” radio? But when the time came to record their third album (“A Happy Pocket”) grunge had swept away any sense of charm or style from the radio airwaves, and before they knew they were without a u.s. record deal.

So after many years away the Sinatras are finally back with their 4th album, this time out in the u.s. on the venerable indie label SpinArt. Appropriately enough the album kicks off with “Welcome Back” a call to arms for the disenfranchised adolescents of the world, and it’s as if the band never went away. Of course, the boys in the band are now all men, and it shows in that they’ve committed the usual “maturing” process (IE, the songs have slowed WAY down.) The hyperactive youthful optimism of their earlier material has been replaced with a more graceful slide into 70’s-inspired (wait for it) easy-listening type fare. But that’s not to say it’s now all your mother’s TCS. Songs like the beautifully string-laden “It’s a Miracle” would be all over “Hot Adult Contemporary” radio if the format weren’t so afraid of embracing anyone but Counting Crows and Train. And in the end TCS has done everything we could have asked of a band whose been away for 8 years and is now in their late 30’s, they’ve aged gracefully.

Originally appeared in the Dallas Music Guide.