FOR MY NEXT MIRACLE - 13 Songs About Death, Love, Hate & Revenge, Regret, Sorrow, Joy & Hope CD

Not so much a case of “you've gotta love this album” as a case of “you simply can't help but love this album” as the band deliver a debut that's absolutely riveting, captivating and pretty well spot on no matter what aspect of it you look at. Over 13 tracks (+ 2 “hidden” tracks), the Dundee-based band provide an absolutely faultless set of what are just great songs, sung with emotion, expression, passion and conviction. The lead singer's got this wondrous sounding vocal that's got a fair range to it but mostly stays on the side of low-down strength mixed with warmly emotive, at many points along the way sounding like a mix of David Thomas out of early Pere Ubu and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. The songs are a mixture of surging electric, flowing electro-acoustic and the occasional acoustic foray, but what they all have in common is this sense of passion, an emotional angst born out of feeling the songs with every fibre of your being, the singer clearly wearing his heart ion his sleeve and proud of it. The album opens with a rousing indie guitar steamer called “Worry...Wait...Who Cares” that really catches fire and grabs your attention from the off, as this chiming sea of guitars weaves over solid deliberate drumming, rumbling bass, all topped off with a soaring and impassioned vocal that's just perfect for the setting, the song and the performance, the guitars climbing ever upwards as the song becomes ever more emotively intense, but somehow there's an optimism there in the passionate gloom as the track sucks you in and you start the journey. “Unrequited Lust” strides out with lurching rhythms, distantly strummed acoustic guitars as the soaring emotive vocal rises up and the song's hook comes scorching into view, the whole thing now choppily striding with added chiming guitar and a vocal takes off and subsides to ever dramatic effect. “The Loner & Black Hearted Wanderer” is a song that just flows along on this bed of rock solid drumming and deep rumbling bass as the initially chiming guitars turn into a storm force slice of indie guitar riffing, the solo and multi-tracked lead vocal and soft background vocal, all giving the verses the necessary sense of observational angst and the choruses that magic ingredient which, once heard, simply makes you want to hear it over and over again, the passion of the song flooding through. From there on, every track that follows is a gem – there's nothing on here that you can criticise, it's that hot an album. “Bipolar Love” is a bona-fide indie anthem where angst-rock is concerned, while “Never Go First In A Suicide Pact” weaves the electro-acoustic web with a lyric that's so darkly humorous and a performance from the band that's crisp and strong, while the vocal sounds more like Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder in many ways and is just superb throughout verses and hooks. But, as I say, it's an album where you just don't feel the need to single out highlights as it's really brilliant from start to finish. I've played it countless times already and still can't even think of tiring of any of it. The only worry is a bit akin to The LA's debut album – so fantastic, where on earth do they go from here!!

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