Howdy

Scotland's Teenage Fanclub offers their sixth full-length. Twelve tracks of pop guitar genius inspired by Big Star and Badfinger. A solid album that you only need to hear once to get into. Followers of Teenage Fanclub will find no surprises on Howdy, as the band members continue to cultivate material from territory seeded by classic popsters such as the Byrds, Big Star, and XTC. Evoking the past while sounding perpetually contemporary is the talent upon which this group's longevity is based, and all 12 songs on this album feature lovelorn characters and vagabond hearts paraded before backdrops of the big, bouncy pop sounds that characterized 1970s chart-toppers. In the early 1990s (circa Thirteen), Teenage Fanclub used this sound to rail against alternative music scenesterism and its tendency to make, and glorify, one-hit wonders. But three albums later, the band members' anger has blunted and their focus has turned inward, leaving them prone to sharp introspection. With sweetly intelligent lyrics, a consistently epic sound on every well-crafted song, and Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies that showcase the three singer-songwriters' enormous talents, Howdy is as good an album to own as almost any other by this enduring band. --Sarah A. Sternau

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