(Morning Star, Saturday 30 April 2005)
ALBUM: Jackie Leven and Ian Rankin - Jackie Leven Said
(Cooking Vinyl)
IAN Rankin and Jackie Leven are two of Scotland's best-known exports in their respective fields.
Sons of Fife, east Scotland, their work is a testament to their upbringings - both men were born and raised in a tough time and place.
Rankin, best known for his straight-talking Detective Rebus is, truth be told, the better known of the two, but a level pegging seems to have been afforded Leven due to the writer's extensive fan-base.
Tracks like Edinburgh Winter Blues betray the darker side of a Scotland that both men can legitimately lay claim to and there is a strident honesty which pervades all of the work, even when the subject matter strays into the fictional in The Haunting of John Rebus.
With two discs humorously titled Fifer Wan (studio tracks) and Fifer Twa (live recording), the album comes across like a souvenir from Fife-Land - the post-industrial working class theme park of hard lives and grizzled faces - but its gritty, complex characterisation and engaging atmosphere resonate long after the music's stopped.
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