October 9, 2001

Mull Historical Society : Loss

Remote Scottish Island duo make good indie debut,suited to mainland consumption

8 / 10 This should be the album
at the end of rock. A speccy virgin from a remote Scottish island
jangling an acoustic and naming himself after his local archaeology club
- how sodding tedious is that going to be, eh? It should be eleven
maudlin dirges called things like 'Now Look At The Early Saxon Markings
On This Relic, Kenneth'. Then Colin MacIntyre yelps "Join us! The
Mull Historical Society!" and suddenly you're diving for the
membership forms. Because, while Starsailor, Coldplay and a trillion
over-earnest little tramp folk bands want you to show some respect for
their mewling trad, only Mull Historical Society pick up their
acoustics with the intent to party. They owe more to Super Furry Animals
('Mull Historical Society' is 'Northern Lites' feeling queasy on
a Hebridean ferry), and sadly defunct mid-'90s Scotpop experimentalists
Dawn Of The Replicants than Tim Buckley, mucking cheerfully around with
BBC Sound Effects records, rusty '80s synths, xylophones, fairground
carousel noises, children's choirs and a large stack of kitchen sinks
in their mission to put the pop back into 'populist acoustic
balladry'.

It's the slivers of vaguely camp kitsch that make
'Loss' the best acoustic pop album of 2001. The Olivia Newton-John
references on the Pulp-do-The-Who classic 'Watching Xanadu'. The
prim choirboys trilling and whistling beautifically over an underwater
harpsichord on the cloudbusting ballad 'Instead'. The way 'I
Tried' is so obviously fellas from a remote Scottish island with a
Stylophone trying to be Aretha Franklin, and almost succeeding.

Like their British equivalent, Clearlake, MHS inhabit a sepia-swamped
world freeze-framed in around 1973, populated by baked-bean-stinking
dole scum and infused with small-town glories. There's the supermarket
stoner bunking up in the storeroom on 'Barcode Bypass', the
downtrodden wage slaves whooping on 'This Is Not
Who We Were' and the tragedy-waiting-to-happen smack couple of
'Strangeways Inside', which is basically an antique ballerina music
box playing 'No Surprises'. The overall effect is a bit like a gang
of unemployed miners invading the Stars In Their Eyes studio and
beating Matthew Kelly to death with a rolled-up parish newsletter.

The
Mull Historical Society holds its AGMs in the space between the sublime,
the ridiculous and the awesomely catchy and, as an opening agenda,
'Loss' discards the original plan of studying ancient Roman pottery
in favour of total world domination. All in favour say 'Aye, Colin'.

Mark Beaumont

Rate this album

Average rating

Be the first to rate this album

To read all our reviews first - days before they appear online - check out NME magazine, on sale every Wednesday

For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our sister site, NME Video.