Teenage Fanclub - Shadows

http://www.teenagefanclub.com/shadows400border.jpg

It gives us great pleasure to finally announce the release of our new album Shadows. It will be available in Glasgow, Europe, Australasia and Japan on May 31st, and from Merge in North America from June 8th.

Tracklisting is as follows:

1. Sometimes I Don’t Need To Believe In Anything
2. Baby Lee
3. The Fall
4. Into The City
5. Dark Clouds
6. The Past
7. Shock And Awe
8. When I Still Have Thee
9. Live With The Seasons
10. Sweet Days Waiting
11. The Back Of My Mind
12.Today Never Ends

they have the song "Baby Lee" on their website:

http://www.teenagefanclub.com/

not a good cover.

yeah strange cover, have they gone hauntology or summat?

I am really worried about this after Man-Made but will think happy thoughts of Everything Flows, Alcoholiday, Sparky's Dream, and Ain't That Enough.

Man-Made was great

Man-Made makes me more keen on this than Howdy! does tbh.

The new track is just like Man-Made in that it sounds like a Teenage Fanclub cover band. Maybe they were taking drugs when they were writing songs in the '90s or something, but for whatever reason their recent stuff has all of the ingredients and none of the spark. Are the words "Baby Lee" really compelling enough to repeat over and over again? OK, nice Brian Wilson percussion, nice jangly guitars, but I don't see how anyone can say this even approaches their '90s material.

I'll still wait for the full album but this is not promising.

Really? I think this is gorgeous ...

I'd love the Bandwagon/Thirteen sound again...all that fuzz and sloppy drumming, fantastic. They were brilliant then.

They were 20 years younger then, too. They've been a model of growing old gracefully. A certain reluctance on this (and the Hold Steady thread) to see bands renowned for sloppy drunkenness daring to grow middle aged and wanting to change as musicians (and maybe people).

To me TFC have been pretty much grown-up from Grand Prix onwards, and apart from Howdy the albums have all been great.

I'd love the Bandwagon/Thirteen sound again...all that fuzz and sloppy drumming

That's the TF that I least like. More albums like Songs From Northern Britain plz.

To me TFC have been pretty much grown-up from Grand Prix onwards, and apart from Howdy the albums have all been great.

This exactly.

The problem with this track is that it spends too much time off the I chord. The verse has a nice progression, but on the chorus most time is spent and the loudest parts and downbeats are on the ii and IV. This is when the climax and release need to happen, but like a lot of aging power poppers they seem to be content to jangle on and on on these off-tonic chords that are pretty but don't grab you.

Power pop in this vein is about juicy resolutions to the tonic--see "Ain't That Enough", which is performed very similarly and uses similar sounds to "Baby Lee" but makes a much bigger impact because of the big V-I and IV-I resolutions in the chorus. "I Don't Want Control of You" bounces around a lot but always ends up on the I in the most important places, see also "Neil Jung", "Don't Look Back", "Discolite", and all the other good songs in what you guys are calling TF's grown-up period. The tonic in the chorus of "Baby Lee" is an afterthought and it's worse off for it.

They were 20 years younger then, too. They've been a model of growing old gracefully. A certain reluctance on this (and the Hold Steady thread) to see bands renowned for sloppy drunkenness daring to grow middle aged and wanting to change as musicians (and maybe people).

― ithappens, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'd have no problem with HS growing up if they were still writing great songs and making records that sounded good.

cover is great!

new song's nice but skip has a point about it resolving in a not-quite-as-satisfying-as-possible way. I still like it tho

nice power pop tune. no more, no less. Alex Chilton RIP.

1. "baby lee" - which i immediately like, maybe for nostalgic reasons - to me sounds like they have always sounded, i used to think their music was shallow, bland, boring etc but later on i got to really enjoy them. bandwagonesque and grand prix being my fave albums, after that i lost track.
2. i don't understand the point of people explaining to other people why some music is supposed to be inferior. to me it seems to be a kind of revenge out of jealousy for the people who appreciate the music. nietzsche called this ressentiment. it's a waste of energy.
3. how is this a cover?

I meant, like, the ALBUM COVER

I think they're talking about the artwork, though I think Baby Lee may have been written with two more writers outside of the band. Either that or he mentioned at a solo gig he wrote it alone on a songwriters retreat in Dumfries with these writers present

That was worded dreadully

the cover art to the music seems like what water is to a cat.

they've always had fairly pristine-looking album covers

"2. i don't understand the point of people explaining to other people why some music is supposed to be inferior. to me it seems to be a kind of revenge out of jealousy for the people who appreciate the music. nietzsche called this ressentiment. it's a waste of energy."

I wrote about why I don't like "Baby Lee" as much as some of Teenage Fanclub's other songs, while other posters have written about how they enjoy the track. You'll have to explain to me what's wrong with this type of conversation because I don't see anything wrong with it. I am certainly not participating in this thread out of jealousy for people who like "Baby Lee", which is a bizarre idea. Speaking of not being able to understand something, I don't understand why people are so protective of musicians that they bristle at any negative commentary of a musical product, let alone respectfully negative commentary from people who have been fans for years and will probably buy the album anyway. Perhaps we should just have gooey circle jerks and talk about how amazing everything is.

lol

woah, i thought skip's post was kind of refreshingly different. I completely fail to see the problem, alex.

song is alright -- it might grow on me.

Baby Lee is fine but not (to my ears) a particularly distinguished TFC number. It’s a Norman Blake song, right? It’s coming from some of the same places as a bunch of his previous stuff, like Mellow Doubt or I Don’t Want Control Of You – very simple chord progressions and a familiar structure and arrangement. But it doesn’t have any kind of quirk in timing or delivery or lyrics that lifted those songs above a million other songs written on acoustic guitars.

When you compare it with IDWCOY, which has cool harmonies, a kind of broken timing, a chord change, a pretty cool guitar solo and an interesting lyric, it really seems pedestrian. Bringing in the strings halfway then some glockenspiels at the end doesn’t impress me. It’s such a cliché that I kind of disappointed in them for employing it in this way. I mean, it’s a nice song but it really sounds like the BMX Bandits, rather than the Teenage Fanclub.

What are the Gerald Love songs on this thing? That’s what I want to know.

In other words, what is this soppy piece of fluff and can I have the real TFC back please?

x-post

maybe my problem is that i did not understand skip's post. my technical knowledge of music is just too limited. my real fear is that while i like the music maybe at the same time it can be scientifically proven that it is only second-rate. but somehow that cannot be, can it? another fear: maybe i will appreciate the music less if i start getting into the details of the tune, harmony and beat. know what i mean? the whole post makes me doubt my taste. and makes me love something less i love. i don't like that. that could be an interesting subject for a new thread.

btw pedestrian is the word that nails how i felt about tfc when i heard them first. around bandwagonesque.

but the bmx bandits are great! simple, laid back, serene.

Yes yes. I love the BMX Bandits. Believe me I go way back with those guys. But the TFC are a whole different thing, despite Norman's involvement with both bands.

i never got around to hearing the last two albums by Teenage Fanclub. i wasn't in the mood for their new stuff back then, 2010 is the right time and looking forward to it. to be honest though i wish this was news about new Moose instead, High Ball Me! is now 10 years old so i doubt they will ever release anything again.

are there francis macdonald songs in tfc? is he even still the drummer?

No, I think he's out now.

I got this from their wiki page: "Gerard Love is also working on a solo album for release on Geographic backed by musicians including Bob Kildea, Tom Crossley, Dave McGowan and Brendan O'Hare."

Sounds interesting.

Francis McDonald is still TFC's drummer. Certainly was when they played Mono with Edwyn Collins a couple of months ago. I'm not sure why he doesn't contribute songs like the others do. Ditto Paul Quinn when he was in - has released many since as The Primary Five.

Francis isn't an "official" member. Promo shots since Paul Quinn left have only ever featured the front three, haven't they?

Alex, that wasn't my intention at all--just trying to bring a different perspective on why I don't think "Baby Lee" works as well as it could. Maybe if a new thread comes up we can talk about this some more.

Francis "is" an "official" member. He's in the photos. Paul Quinn isn't on the cover of Howdy because it was released some time after both it's completion and his departure.

Actually, he's probably only been in the photos since Man-Made. But I'm sure he's 1/4 of TFC these days.

It took five or six listens to seep in, but I think it's a beautiful record. Not on par with Man-Made (one of my favorites) in terms of their MOR stuff, but they rock out a little.

what i've heard on the last disc sounded too comfortable and settled; tuneful, but such a far cry from bandwagonesque. still, i'm anxious to hear the new disc.

http://www.studio-2b.com/images/galleries/technology_14_bucket.jpg

haha, i didn't think that bucket would be that BIG.

i still have yet to here this record. i see Pitchfork today gave it a 7.4

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14267-shadows/

yeah, what i said upthread now sounds a little ungenerous. i'm kind of looking forward to hearing this.

They also gave Man-Made a 7.4, so apparently they have not improved.

A 7.4 on Pitchfork: it was good but do we really want this featured on Best New Music?

this is really nice! so glad they're still at it

Best Teenage Fanclub album since Songs From Northern Britain.

underrated

don't know this album as i lost touch with TFC in the late 90s, but i just listened to "baby lee" (thank you, spotify) and it's fantastic. don't get skip's complaint that "it sounds like a Teenage Fanclub cover band." it sounds exactly like teenage fanclub, like good teenage fanclub even. and like big star, but there's nothing wrong with that. have to find a copy of this.

"Dark Clouds"!

yeah I stopped following them after Grand Prix but this album totally brought me back into the fold, so to speak

okay, as a result of this thread, i've spent the last 10 days immersing myself in everything teenage fanclub has done since bandwagonesque. i was passingly familar with grand prix and thirteen going in, based on brief exposure in the 90s, but since then i'd only heard the odd stray single.

turns out they're still a fucking great band. haven't made a bad album yet, though bandwagonesque remains the landmark masterpiece. even so, for everyday listening, i think i prefer the gentler sound they've been pursuing since songs from northern britain. that's partially a product of relative novelty, but i also just love the obvious attention to texture, detail and craft on the more recent albums. they may not be as bracingly exuberant as the early powerpop explosions, but they're a lot richer and more varied. and the best songs easily hold their own with anything the band has ever done. "baby lee", "dark clouds" and "when i still have thee" rank up there with my favorite rock-based pop songs of the new century. kind of indie as adult contemporary, but i'm a contemporary adult, so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6UuoS7kd-g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioFbSpKRatA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSwseEpUKf8

P.S. i can't understand the griping about the cover imagery upthread. it's not "hauntology", it's modernism. it's consistent with the visual aesthetic of their last few albums and fits the music extremely well in that it's orderly, formalist, of the mid-twentieth-century, and concerned with design.

ha yes they are def formalist

this is probably their best album cover actually, given how shitty/stupid the covers for like their first 4 albums are

Songs from Northern Britain is my favorite Teenage Fanclub album. thanks for bumping this thread as now i'm going to listen to Shadows a bit more as i never did give it a fair shake.

Dark Clouds is good, but everything seems kind of samey to me. Personally, I think Grand Prix is their masterwork; about half that album is stunning.

that surprises me, cuz along with that, i adored "baby lee" and "when i still have thee" right out of the gate. i love the exaggerated, baroque-pop coyness of the former, like the stones' "lady jane", but much more sincere and affecting. otoh, i love the billy bragg-style, heart-on-sleeve directness of the latter. still get a lump in my throat every time "to the rolling stones and the red army" comes around.

i honestly think that these are three of the best and most immediately/obviously great songs anyone in the band has yet written. all three by norman blake, too. over the last couple albums, he really seems to be pulling out ahead of love and mcginley as as songwriter (not that he was ever lagging behind).

grand prix is definitely a strong contender for their best album.

Maybe I'm just in a different mood to everyone else, but I think Ray's songwriting is getting better and better. His songs on "Shadows" overshadow the others by a mile for me. I love all three songwriters, but Ray's songs tend to touch emotional nerves I never knew I had.

i wondered about that, whether or not my strong preference for the recent blake songs would be shared by other listeners/fans. i agree that mcginley has improved quite a bit as a songwriter, but man-made's "only with you" is his only recent song that i'm immediately tempted to call a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlHrMmQkJa4

The Fall's one of Ray's isn't it? The coda on that really resonated with stuff that was happening in my life 2 summers ago and still kills me now.
I've often considered a TFC songwriters poll, but I'm not sure it would really prove anything.

Off-topic but I was listening to the Lightships record yesterday, sitting in the sun in the garden and it had such a sweet feeling to it- it seems to have been slept on a bit since it came out.

"Only with you" - awesome song, if slightly let down by the piano coda going on too long (which they insisted on replicating live on the "Man made" tour.

Totally agree with the coda to "The fall", the chord changes and the lyrics - especially the lyrics -just make me well up every time.

Must get Lightships soon, heard a few songs and loved 'em (no pun intended)

best-of-the-best favorites in the wake of songs from northern britain:

• accidental life
• straight and narrow
• if i never see you again (three of norman's songs from howdy)

• it's all in my mind
• only with you (from man-made, one each from norman and raymond)

• the i mentioned from shadows

* "i need direction", "happiness", "nowhere", "sweet days waiting", etc

^ meant "the three i mentioned from shadows"

The Fall's one of Ray's isn't it? The coda on that really resonated with stuff that was happening in my life 2 summers ago and still kills me now.

― useless chamber, Sunday, August 19, 2012 9:35 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Only with you" - awesome song, if slightly let down by the piano coda going on too long (which they insisted on replicating live on the "Man made" tour.

Totally agree with the coda to "The fall", the chord changes and the lyrics - especially the lyrics -just make me well up every time.

― Rob M Revisited, Sunday, August 19, 2012 9:44 AM (6 minutes ago)

agree about the last two minutes of the fall. they're gorgeous, both musically and lyrically. only wish the first three-and-a-half were a bit more interesting. maybe i'm slighting it, i dunno...

can see as how the long piano tinkle at the close of "only with you" might bug, but i like it quite a bit.

the fact that i've heard most of these songs for the first time only over the last couple weeks should perhaps incline me to be a bit less declarative about what i consider best and worst among them. i'm still at the stage where i find new things in them almost every time i listen.

The piano outro is great to mix something behind (the intro to "Tilting at windmills" fading in works well). In a live setting it did not work at all.

I'll think about my faves since 97 and get back later. I spent a very happy day a few weeks ago doing housework and playing the Fannies' albums in order, with the windows wide and the sun blazing - a good day indeed.

(I was reading an interpretation of "Accidental life" somewhere the other day that was completely contrary to what I thought it was about, but can't remember what it was now.)

i've been thinking a lot about what teenage fanclub songs are about, both as individual lyrics and in general. they often at first seem almost vanishingly vague, pleas to an undefined "you" from a place that's never more specific than "in love". at the same time and as a band, TFC articulate a singular philosophy/experiential position more clearly than almost any pop-rock band i can think of. they write songs about the question of being. they wonder constantly how one might be, find, progress and/or know. moreover, they do this from a position of withdrawn, passive, comfort-seeking near apathy. this vision has never wavered. it was there in "everything flows" and it's still there in something like half the songs on any given album.

this results in pleasant, easily relatable songs (who doesn't seek comfort and understanding?), but coupled with an almost perverse aversion to narrative specificity, the repetition threatens to become a little maddening. how many times can you insist that you <<know what you know and feel what you feel>> before this becomes tiresome even to you? there's something fascinating about dedicating decades-long songwriting careers to ideas like these, but come on...

one of the things i like best about norman's recent songwriting is that he's willing to move beyond philosophical generalities, me + you emoting, and the subjective position of the conflict-averse late sleeper. he's at least a little more likely than his partners to write songs about people and situations that seem to exist outside himself.

anyway, i don't know what "accidental life" is about exactly. it's hard not to read it as a repudiation of the apathetic "i see me seeing me and feeling stuff" character found in so many other fanclub songs. it also seems to be a companion piece to "straight and narrow", a story about someone who seems helpless to master their own decisions.

TFC, ranked:

1. Grand Prix
2. Songs from Northern Britain
3. Bandwagonesque
4. Thirteen
5. Man-Made
6. Howdy!
7. Shadows (I will admit this one hasn't really had a fair shake)

(I don't really know the pre-Bandwagon stuff.)

Show I saw two years ago was sublime/perfect. Show I saw 17 years ago I don't really remember, but I wish I did.

Interviewed Gerry Love last year and said to him a lot of his songs seemed to be located in cities, and are specifically rooted in engaging with physical surroundings. "Oh aye," he replied. "That's because I studied town planning." An answer you will rarely get from pop singers.

Here's an often missed Fanclub gem, because it was one of the new tracks on the best-of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKWv0eSWaTc

Fraid I'm not with you on the Blake love, contenderizer. I'm only a couple of listens into the album but "Baby Lee" and "When I Still Have Thee" both immediately struck me as overly twee, exemplified by the distance/insistent couplet on the first and the archaic pronoun for rhyming purposes on the second. "Sometimes I Don't Need to Believe in Anything" and "Shock and Awe" are the standout tracks so far - of course they are two of the richer or more upbeat tracks, I'm sure the some of the more subtle ones will reveal their charms over time.

yeah, "baby lee" is hella twee, but in an unforced and slightly tongue-in-cheek way that i quite enjoy. and i don't at all object to the use of "thee" in a song that seems intended to be a hymn (and admits as much).

"shock and awe" is one of my least favorite songs on the album. the hook doesn't catch, and i dislike the offer of passive indolence as a protest against violence. "wake me when the conflict is over" strikes me as more selfish than compelling. do like the way the organ suggests fireworks.

"sometimes i don't need to believe in anything" is great though, yeah. not sure it needs the hazy scrim of guitar fuzz over the chorus, but i've gotten used to it.

I have warmed a bit to "Baby Lee" since my rant upthread but the whole album still feels flat and the hooks still don't catch. Pretty much everything on Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain is like a smack to the back of the head in comparison.

Baby Lee is a hell of an earworm, i'll give it that.

"Sometimes..." is very Boo Radleys circa Giant Steps.

Baby Lee is the only song I can remember from this album. The album as a whole left me pretty lukewarm but I only listened to the whole thing two or 3 times when it came out.

it's far from their best album, and like everything they've done in the last decade-plus, it takes some time to sink in, but the rewards are definitely there.

then again, i'm not an albums person. i mean, i like album, but only for the tracks i most enjoy. i love this band, but now that i've familiarized myself with their work, i'll probably only listen to playlists of the songs i'm most interested in.

uh, "i mean, i like albums, but only for..."

My theory on TFC: They started off as a pretty rough sounding band. Their initial roughness was certainly one of their virtues -early gigs were notoriously ramshackle, drunken, hugely fun affairs. Their other strenghs were still evident - great songwriting, harmonies, guitaring, being cool etc, but somewhat buried under the rough'n'ready exterior. Seems to me that each album knocked a few rough edges because every album is slightly smoother sounding and more mellow than the previous one, which for a time allowed their other virtues to shine. But eventually there was a tipping point and their whole thing becomes really pedestrian and a bit of a drag. For me the last couple of albums are no fun anymore - too mellow, too serious and quite bland.

And fucking off for five years did them no favours.

i might agree in part, though i wouldn't push it to such a damning extreme. i genuinely like the laid-back, mature and craftsmanlike quality of their last four albums, but i do agree that their work has become somewhat spotty lately, especially on man-made and shadows. too many songs fade pleasantly off into the dusky aether without leaving a memorable trace. and when they try to "rock out" (as on man-made's "born under a good sign"), they often sound unconvincing. i quite like "slow fade", a more spirited rocker from the same album, but it's dying for a proper, j. mascis-style guitar solo. the energy dwindles when they settle for stereo panning a dull melodic progression instead of really letting it rip.

that's in large part why i mentioned my fondness for norman blake's sonwriting, which hasn't slipped an inch, imo. of the ten tracks i'd keep off the last two albums, six are by blake. mcginley's got two good-to-great songs on man-made ("nowhere" and "only with you"), while love has two on shadows ("sometimes i don't need to believe in anything" and "sweet days waiting"). what's more, i think blake's best recent songs are easily the equal of anything the band's ever done. every member of the band has done commendable work over the years, but NB is the reason i'm still interested.

I agree with you in part about Norman, he's always written those kind of broken ballads. But when you compare for example Baby Lee with one of his earlier numbers there is a noticable difference. I'm just going to cut and paste what I posted about Baby Lee two years ago in this thread: "When you compare it with IDWCOY, which has cool harmonies, a kind of broken timing, a chord change, a pretty cool guitar solo and an interesting lyric, it really seems pedestrian. Bringing in the strings halfway then some glockenspiels at the end doesn’t impress me. It’s such a cliché that I kind of disappointed in them for employing it in this way. I mean, it’s a nice song but it really sounds like the BMX Bandits, rather than the Teenage Fanclub."

I more or less put the tipping point after Howdy. After that I could no longer hear the band that they were in the beginning of their career. And that's reflected in their output too i think. 1990-2000 = 7 albums. 2001-2012 = Two albums. It's hard for me to sustain interest in a band, even one I love, where the output drops off so severely .

contenderizer, did you hear the Jonny record that came out last year on Merge? Blake + Euros Childs (of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) teamed up for a perfectly simple pop album that I thought was a wonderful little listen.

generally agree with the "polished into a slow fade" TFC arc, though I do like "Britain" and "Grand Prix" more than the earlier roughness of "Bandwagonesque." but yeah, the last three are kind of increasingly mediocre TFC paint-by-numbers.

xpost i think we can all agree that HOWDY! is TFC's New Jersey

hmm I've never listened to Howdy or Man-Made. everything else I can pretty much put on "shuffle" and be pleasantly entertained by

i don't love Man-Made, but the first track, 'It's All In My Mind' is one of TFC's finest...

Howdy! is sorely underrated.

^ both these last two comments otm. howdy! really seems to have been unfairly ignored. though its real out-of-the-park classic (imo) is blake's "straight & narrow", everybody's working near the top of their game. it's only real sin is that it's a noticeable step down from grand prix and songs from northern britain.

edit: "though its only real, out-of-the-park classic..."

The problem with "Howdy" is the very pedestrian production. If it had a bit of roughness and / or gloss it would be regarded better. When they play the songs live they sound so much better. (Regarding the keychange on "IDWCOY", live Norman simply moves his capo up two frets, with a huge grin on his face). Maybe I am getting mellow with age but I still love their newer stuff, because their mellowness reflects mine. They don't need to go back and do what they did in the early 90s, they are different people to then. Having said that, it would be nice if they played "Alcoholiday" live. God, I'm so contrary sometimes.

Also, aren't they living in different countries now? Isn't Norman in Canada or something? Makes it harder to get together to record etc? Must have an effect on their productivity

Yes I did hear Norman lives in or (God help him) near Toronto. Wish he would do a Canadian tour in a van like everyone else does (speaking as an expat Scot living in Canada btw).

God, I'm so contrary sometimes.

Nothing contrary about that - there's no need to pretend they are the same musicians who made "A Catholic Education" but many of their best latter day tracks have the same jammy, wandering feeling as "Alcoholiday". If anything the last two albums have more in common with the feel of that song than a tightly coiled song like "IDWCOY".

this is nice, i'm kind of a sucker for records where band has sort of given up delusions that it's going to be any big deal and just settle in and make nice songs in their own style

this is better than the new real estate record

it's called craftsmanship

anyone listened to the norman blake/joe pernice thing (under the not-great moniker of new mendicants)? i should probably check it out.

baby lee is a great song

tylerw, did you listen to Jonny? I didn't think their album was as good as it could've been.

new one's good but maybe a bit behind Shadows ime. One too many dreary plodding songs but the highs are great - opening track is killer

I dunno... A bunch of Teenage Fanclub threads but none made sense to append with this information and I didn't want to start a new thread so I'm tacking this on here since it seems to be the band's most commented-upon thread...

http://mcusercontent.com/24e08bf1cf5410d583185b9b0/images/16df0f67-41f9-4483-b793-ad722c907eaf.jpg

Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub! Endless Arcade, the legendary Scottish group’s first album since 2016’s Here, is out March 5. Pre-order today on CD, LP, and translucent pink Peak Vinyl packaged in a special die-cut jacket in the (newly relaunched) Merge shop, or wherever records are sold. The first 100 Peak Vinyl orders in our store will receive a 12” × 12” print signed by the band.

Accompanying the album announcement is Endless Arcade’s opening song “Home,” with a music video to follow tomorrow. Though the track stretches to seven minutes on the album, its coda has been saved for the record’s release day. What we are left with is an incredible display of the assured and relaxed pop that we’ve grown to admire from the group. Listen today:

Listen to & share "Home (single version)" by Teenage Fanclub now

Endless Arcade is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heartwarming and heartaching, guitars chime and distort, keyboard lines mesh and spiral, harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.

In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix. This century, albums such as Shadows and Here have documented a more relaxed, less “teenage” Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, alongside which Endless Arcade slots perfectly. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community, and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts of insecurity, anxiety, and loss.

Still, the title track suggests, “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.”

http://mcusercontent.com/24e08bf1cf5410d583185b9b0/_compresseds/82d9070c-9d23-452d-82c0-7fd667ccf140.jpg