The band hails from rainy Glasgow, but the blueprint for this album is Neil Young's 1972 Harvest, that guide to sun-drenched California soul-searching with Heart of Gold on it. Fortunately, layers of spaced-out guitars and the occasional well-placed synthesizer track remind us that this is a contemporary U.K. band, so none of the songs sound retro or slavishly derivative. There's a college audience thirsty for modern variations on the soft sound Young pioneered, and these lads, along with fellow Scots Belle and Sebastian, have the songwriting talent to deliver the goods.
--By Benjamin Nugent
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