Heirs to the shimmering British jangle-pop sound of acts such as The Smiths, Aztec Camera and Orange Juice, this Scottish quintet burst onto the scene in 1990. Their near-flawless debut, Cake, purveying rich, elaborate arrangements of strings and sophisticated harmonies coated with a bright layer of crisp, ringing guitar, all surrounding delicate, lingering melodies sweet enough to induce a diabetic coma. TCS released two more albums before they were deep-sixed by grunge and slipped into obscurity. Now, with Spector-esque lushness in ascendancy, the Sinatras have picked the perfect time to return. All their signature moves are intact: The gentle lullaby “What Women Do to Men” floats by on heavenly clouds of lighter-than-air strings; the billowing, lovelorn “Usually” slides on by with a certain Sunday-afternoon, bar-crawl melancholy akin to a more enticing Style Council; and the bounding “It’s a Miracle” chugs along to a folk shuffle of Johnny Marr-ish Rickenbacker guitar accented with horns and the distant thunder of bass drum and timpani. It’s classy, graceful, opulently apportioned music with a sense of resilience and hope. It doesn’t rock particularly hard, but at least it isn’t brooding.
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2004.