I was pretty chuffed to discover recently that there will soon be a new album by the splendidly stylish Scottish lot, Trashcan Sinatras.

Their first album, ‘Cake’ came out in 1990 but the band had signed to Go! Discs (home to Paul Weller, Housemartins, Beautiful South, Billy Bragg, Portishead and The La’s, amongst others) way back in 1987, using their advance to first build their own excellently-named Shabby Road studio in Kilmarnock.

Remarkably, this new studio album will be only their sixth. They don’t come around often but their intermittent LPs are always worth waiting for (and they’re astonishing live).

This forthcoming release is currently in production thanks to a successful pledgemusic campaign, showing how, despite their lack of commercial success or even critical commendation, they have a super-loyal fanbase eager for new material who remain in equal parts both puzzled and secretly glad that they’re not more universally appreciated.

It’s been seven years since their last album. One which I was compelled to review with a reasonable degree of enthusiasm.

Trashcan Sinatras- ‘In The Music’

Despite the minimal exposure and their deliberately dormant existence, it’s still mystifying to consider how a band as fine as Trashcan Sinatras have slithered sleekly under most people’s alarm sensor laser beams. Lying low, they’ve avoided the bright lights to instead work in their own snug world of blissful musical candour, convening sporadically, unbothered by public indifference and keen to create something timeless.

‘Weightlifting’, the last shining example of their craft, emerged 5 long years ago and this album is only the 5th studio release in their 20-year existence but, rare as they are, new songs by these gracefully ageing Scots are well worth waiting for.

From the crystalline jangle of the opener, ‘People’, every track shines. ‘I Hung My Heart Upon The Willows’ is a lush Balearic sea shanty, ‘Prisons’ a stomping crowd-pleaser, while the doleful Syd Barrett tribute, ‘Oranges & Apples’, is seven head-swaying minutes of gentle sea breeze loveliness.

The album was made in the glow of love and its warm, trebly production exudes a twinkling air of tranquillity throughout, but not once do things get soppy or blandly sentimental. Frank Reader’s whispered vocals have an intimate quality and the lyrics are beguilingly delivered, particularly on the marvellous ‘I Wish You’d Met Her’.

With Reader (whose big sister, Eddi co-wrote two tracks) and Guitarist Paul Livingston now living out new lives with new wives in L.A, there is a winning mix of Californian sun and Caledonian glum (let’s call it ‘Caledornian fun’!). The liquefied harmonies and a guest appearance from Carly Simon on ‘Should I Pray?’ only add to the hazy, ‘70s ‘Laurel Canyon’ feel each track is imbued with. Coming over kinda like Fleetwood Floyd, dreamy yet dextrous, they sound joyfully confident and ready to charm the world.

Chances are, though, this new album won’t kick the Trashcans skyward but it will delight existing devotees and, for anyone else who welcomes great music into their home, this will be the prettiest, most instantly mood-lifting bundle of tunes to unravel itself at your door this year. Ten tracks, all wonderful and, assuming you have a soul, impossible not to love. The proof is ‘In The Music’.

Score: 9/10

See if you agree… ‘In The Music’ is up in full here on YouTube. It’s unlikely they’ll have a feisty team of lawyers demanding it gets taken down anytime soon but, nevertheless, listen to it now… It’ll be a lot nicer than that last thing you were listening to.

However, if you’re in a rush and/or want something to watch, here’s the feelgood video to ‘People’, the opening (but by no means the strongest) track from it:

(review originally published here)