Indie decade

(Morning Star, Friday 12 October 2007)

ALBUM: Idlewild - Scottish Fiction: Best of 1997-2007
(Parlophone)

INDIE folkster Roddy Woomble's Celtic indie songsters Idlewild have been chart-bothering for 10 years.

Idlewild's original incarnation as youthful noiseniks is fully represented here, with the unsurpassable When I Argue I See Shapes and These Wooden Ideas making an appearance, but, as with all best-of collections, it is astonishing to see the path that they have followed, through the REM-style tuneful mediocrity of American English, the more traditional stylings of Live in a Hiding Place and the 1980s rock sound of No Promises.

Enthralling and inspiring when at their best, this band will last at least another decade and, going by their current record, they'll yield some corkers.

Scottish treasure shines again

(Morning Star, Friday 05 October 2007)

ALBUM: Edwyn Collins - Home Again
(Heavenly Records)

EDWYN Collins should be up there with castles, shortbread and devolution - he's something that the Scottish have got absolutely right.

There are column inches about his stroke a couple of years ago, filled with patronising platitudes.

The truth is that Collins is a national treasure who, even with his unfortunate change in circumstances, has brought out one of the freshest, most enduring, most exciting records of the year.

Let no-one consider patronising here, of a man with a grasp on a rhyming couplet roundly denied most artists to reach the top 10 these days.

Home Again is an album for lovers and family, about youth and heartache, getting older and being loved.

One is a Lonely Number is a cracking opener, with an Orange Juice-style rhythm and plenty in the way of strangely prophetic lyrics which could almost foretell his stroke were one to be looking.

Elsewhere, the title track wouldn't sound out of place on a Richard Hawley record, which is an astounding compliment and You'll Never Know My Lovetakes the best soul of the Style Council and melds it with Collins's own uniquely moving voice.

The high point Leviathan pays homage to the great wilderness of Collins's own country, all brooding and Scottish.

It would have been to music fans' cost had Collins given up on recording. Home Again is his gift to the listener and it's a rich and wonderful record, shot through with hope and aspiration alongside realistic darknesses. Collins on this album, after all this time, truly is home again.