Teenage Fanclub - Man-Made (2005)

The long-awaited 7th studio album from Scotland's Teenage Fanclub is finally nearing release. The band's meteoric rise to critical acclaim in the early 1990's as part of the Creation Records family (a family which also included My Bloody Valentine) and later Geffen Records on which they released Bandwagonesque (an album heralded by Spin Magazine as Best Album of 1991 and humorously by others as "a shit album with shit songs") has been, at times, inconsistent. In spite of personnel changes and critical woes, the band has never wavered from it's endearing and affectionate embrace of it's heroes - Big Star, the Beatles, Neil Young, and the Byrds. Man-Made is no exception to the rule and should be universally heralded by critics as one of Teenage Fanclub's best efforts (if not their very best). These 12 songs find harmonic convergences of pitch-perfect vocals, warm and inviting multi-layered fuzztone guitars and keyboards planting their classic brand of '60s and '70s pop earworms gently. If the hundreds of bands that were launched in the wake of Teenage Fanclub's popularity weren't enough evidence, then Man-Made is proof positive of why the Fannies no longer merely pay homage to their power pop influences; they have firmly established their place among the upper echelons of power pop's most important and influential artists. Pema. 2005. * No US release until June.