Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 30/5/05
Label: Source

By album three, most bands take the increased production budget afforded to their corporation's most esteemed employees and start pulling in massed choirs of children, the Berlin Phil and shakuhachi players flown business class from Japan. Not Olly Kights and Gale Paridjanian. Their third album was written, performed produced and engineered by themselves in their own Brixton studio, the result being sweet, vibrant and sunny songs with just as much invention and passion as 2000's buzz-building early EPs.

No dramatic developments here: seek all you like, but similarities/differences to "The Optimist" and are minimal. There's perhaps a more beefy Southern rock feel to certain numbers but the diminutive Londoners were always capable of arena-filling outrocking when the occasion demanded. On the whole it's still all keening Simon & Garfunkel-like harmonies and some of the most delicious, intricate and nimble-fingered acoustic guitar playing seen outside of an Appalachian Clawpickers Convention. Turin Brakes only strum when it's absolutely necessary.

The album opens with what might be read as a statement of intent: "All in all it's been a blast/Fame and fortune never last/We'll take our refuge in the sound" (the gently soulful "They Can't Buy The Sunshine") before jerking into life with stand-out track the downright groovy "Red Moon" - a retread of Cream's "I Feel Free" - electric guitars, and a racing rhythm punctuated by handclaps and tambourine. An amused analysis of LA glitz, "Fishing For A Dream" suggests one of Elliott Smith's happier moments: the big kick-off one minute in, some low-key 'doo doo doo's.

There's also a touch of Sondheim (oh, all right - Stephin Merritt) in the lyrics and delivery of lines like "We'll make quite a pair/Dazzling all the time/Nothing is too good there for my girl". Top honours, however, go to the title track, a thigh-slapping redneck rocker-cum-trippy 60s spinout with a lovely whiff of Lynryd Skynyrd.

A celebratory and uplifting listen, then, in which not one bongo beat or shaker shake is out of place. Won't frighten the horses: nay, nor even the cats, birds or woodlice. But may see them uncorking a chilled rosé and organising a barbecue.

    by Anna Britten