Broken Records: Until the Earth Begins to Part

Positively brimming with ambition, confidence and diverse songsmithery, this debut album from the Edinburgh seven-piece folk rock outfit sees them leaving behind early comparisons to Arcade Fire and growing into their own skins beautifully. Opener ‘Nearly Home’ is an epic soundtrack to Scotland’s dreich open vistas, while elsewhere they veer from psycho-polka on ‘A Good Reason’ to heartbreaking melancholy on poignant swansong ‘Slow Parade’. The music throughout heaves and groans, sighs and hollers with intense, organic passion, and they share the same sense of melodic grandiosity without pomposity that the sadly defunct Delgados had in their prime. A properly thrilling debut.

(4AD)