Of all the charmingly strange things swirling around Mull Historical Society's career thus far - the band name, that long-suffering dog in a wig on the cover of debut 'Loss', one-man-band Colin MacIntyre's past as a stockbroker - surely the most endearing is the moment the Shipping Forecast turns up. MacIntyre probably isn't the only British musician to have twigged its hallucinatory potential. But when that familiar-in-dreams voice incants "Fisher, German Bight, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Merlin, Hebrides" just as 'Am I Wrong' swoons into a mutant doo-wop paean to love and loss, there's probably a secret army out there already rolling on the carpet in doggy delight at the rightness of it all.
And no wonder. Despite its essentially downbeat lyrical thrust, 'Us' has joy written all over it and repeat-play etched into its grooves. Less bombastic than its exuberantly overegged predecessor, 'Us' is the superior effort, trading as it does in romantic uncertainty ('Five More Minutes') and gentle dissociation ('Oh Mother', 'Am I Wrong') and syruping it over with perfect hooks. Like 'Loss', it finds magic in a dressing-up box of noises, from the chimes and off-kilter middle eight of glistening first single 'The Final Arrears' through the buzzy lollop of 'Live Like the Automatics' and a mischievous hidden track that fades out in a brass band and a herd of sheep. Of course, sonic kleptomania is par for the bedroom-genius course, as are the omnipresent Brian Wilson references and the fact that it could, frankly, have done with some editing. On the other hand, even its mad-scientist obsessiveness only points in the lordly direction of the Todd Rundgren MacIntyre frequently recalls, from the Brill Building-ish 'Asylum' to the co-dependent balladry of 'Can'.
Inevitably, the most intriguing tracks are those offering the most to chew on lyrically. 'The Supermarket Strikes Back', which picks up where 'Loss'' 'Barcode Bypass' left off, is not only the pop-thrills standout here, but its semi-opaque tale of small-town shops and "the grave of a grocer" offers up a chorus ("I tilt my head back and I swallow the pills/I no longer feel alive") is equal parts despair and jubilation. Similarly, the Rundgren-esque soul of 'Minister For Genetics and Insurance MP' plays its more-bitter-than-sweet storyline ("We're trying to keep our jobs/Economy class and smile on the planes") off against wibbly, skittering rhythms and tweets.
Colin MacIntyre makes music like a man delighted, beguiled and confused by a noisy world; it's only apt he's come up with a swooning pop album that does all three to the rest of us.
