weightlifting album review

the big takeover

by jack rabid
winter, 2004/5 (issue #55)

Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting

Entirely fulfilling the promise of their sublime teaser Weightlifting EP from early 2004, Weightlifting the album is a sparkling comeback for this fine Scottish outfit. Their last LP, A Happy Pocket, released nearly a decade ago, was a good effort, though it seemed slightly fatigued after the crisp watershed I’ve Seen Everything. Their U.K. label Go!Discs soon folded, and the Trashcans ran afoul of Britain’s Inland Revenue (their I.R.S.). The group foundered and eventually scrapped the finished LP that at least gave us the heartbreaking, devastating single "Snow" - proving that the band's artistic mettle had survived intact. That is again the case here.

The production is twinkling and soulful, and the mix, by Andy Chase of Ivy, is full of luster. The playing ranges from surprisingly aggressive (the hard-hitting opener "Welcome Back") to playfully skipping (the standout winner "All the Dark Horses"), to, most prominently, the trademark winsome beauty of the slow-Smiths-like tradition (the wizened "What Women Do to Men," "Usually," "Trouble Sleeping," and "Got Carried Away," which includes guest vocals from Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake). Frank Reader’s Roddy Frame-ish crooning remains a pleasure, as does the group’s way with a buoyant tune and heart-of-the-matter unvarnished love lyrics. ("The oddest thing of all this time/ Is I’m not sad at all/ I can see beyond the hardest thing of all… goodbye"). The LP ebbs and flows by like a slow, steady river on a quiet day off, a refreshment of the human spirit.

"You will find a great weight lifting." I couldn’t have put it better.

Originally appeared in the Big Takeover.