Man-Made
Label: Merge
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Man-Made
Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub are veterans of “pop” music not popular since the mid-1960s. You know the type: three-part harmonies, breezy, catchy melodies, flashing moments that make listeners think of the Beatles, Byrds, Big Star and countless bands birthed to different decades but all playing with one eye on the past. Norman Blake still writes the band’s most commanding material, as “It’s All in My Mind,” Man-Made‘s opening cut, bears out. But over the years TF have become a true collective, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley adding their equal contributions. Tortoise’s John McEntire recorded and mixed the results, which are both genuinely pleasant and wearing over 12 tracks. Love’s “Fallen Leaves” sticks its foot out to trip you up with an extra melodic step, but much of what’s here has an agreeably fuzzy haze hanging over it, a mild buzz that never reaches oblivion. Mostly, it’s because none of the three singers aim to lead with authority. They prefer to blend in with their surroundings, flattening their music into some damn pretty wallpaper.
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2005.