Shadows by Teenage Fanclub – Album Review

by Matt Callard

There’s little credit these days for being tunesmiths of the highest order. Although apart from debut album Bandwagonesque‘s brief moment in the fashionable sun back in ’91, Teenage Fanclub have always been a little bit out of time.

So no doubt people will shrug and sigh at yet another Fannies album. Then move on to the next set of hip things with cutting edge haircuts and barely-cutting-it tunes. And the band, I suppose, will just have to get on with the dirty business of being self-financed and self-promoted and bona fide national treasures. At least to their devoted middle-age fanclub, anyway.

“Bona fide national treasures”

But let’s not damn them with faint praise.

Shadows is impeccable stuff – leaning on a rare songwriting alchemy, less abrasive than previous releases and more plaintive than ever; underlined by David McGowan’s heart-tugging pedal steel.

A lesson in growing old gracefully.
8/10