Teenage Fanclub

Shadows

(Merge)

Record Review by Kevan Peterson

The ninth studio album by a band that was once dubbed “the best band in the world,” by the late and equally great Kurt Cobain, Teenage Fanclub leaps back from a five-year silence with Shadows, a bouncy, vibrant record that’s sugar sweet on the outside with just a hint of somberness at its core.

Having the added benefit of utilizing three lead singers, Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley, and Gerard Love, each get four of the twelve songs to strut their stuff and play to their strengths.  Kicking off the album is Love’s “Sometimes I Don’t Need to Believe in Anything,” a somewhat uplifting song, despite its title.  Second tune (but first single) “Baby Lee” belongs to Blake.  Reminiscent of an early '90s Tom Petty ditty, the song is catchy and simple without being dumbed down.  Rounding out the first three is McGinley’s “The Fall,” a downtrodden tune, which delivers a smooth guitar solo atop its slow grooving beats.

Not to be outdone, Blake answers back with “Dark Clouds,” a few tracks later.  But for the most part the tracks stick to the sunnier things in life, with tunes like “When I Still Have Thee,” and “Sweet Days Waiting.”  One’s fast and the latter is slow, but both are more optimist then pessimist, as a band that’s seen two decades of success has little to complain about.  The only shadow they’re standing under is their own.