The Scottish Enlightenment – ‘St. Thomas.’ (Armellodie)
Like the Guinness advertisements have long held, the best things come to those who wait.
In early 2007, The Scottish Enlightenment stunned with their debut EP, Eyes. It got a lot of good coverage, but the band seemed to disappear for a while. And then towards the end of last year, the whispering started that there were gigs. They’d signed to the excellent scottish indie Armellodie. Then this year, not one but TWO awesome EPs, entitled Pascal and Little Sleep, and people started to say that if the EPS were this good, and made up of stuff that hadn’t made the album, well…just how good was that debut album going to be once it arrived?
The answer is: very, very good indeed. Over the course of eleven tracks, the band release an album that not onnly features eleven amazing songs but hangs together extremely well as an album. It’s a brooding, majestic beautiful beast. It’s the perfect soundtrack to the Scottish autumn, which has well and truly arrived here, and is hinting that it’s about to get much, much nastier. From album opener ‘Gal Gal’ to the closing ‘Cogito’ the band just delievr an album that’s almost perfect, goddamit. The title tracks of those two aforementioned EPs are here, as well as one track ‘List Right’ which could be Stuart Staples fronting iLikeTrains. Yes. That Special.
I’ve played this album a lot over the last few weeks -and having born witness to them live, they’re pretty special in that field, too. This album will crop up in the end of year polls -and entirely on its’ own merits. With this release, Armellodie show themselves to be the equals of Chemikal Underground and The Scottish Enlightenment have both rewarded their listeners and delieverd on the promise they showed all those years ago.
*****
St. Thomas will be released on November 15 on Armellodie.
The First Will Be Last by The Scottish Enlightenment by Armellodie
