Aberfeldy Young Forever

The new album, Young Forever by Scottish band Aberfeldy is, uh, pretty good, so, ya know, you should, like, get it, cause, ya know, you'll probably like it.

What? I have to keep writing? Well, ok. It's just that there's not much to say about this record, other than its extremely pleasant. There's nothing ambitious here, or overblown, or pretentious, or innovative, or significant in any way. That should be enough to recommend it, but it doesn't give the haughty critic much to exercise his thesaurus on. I can't fill this out with biographical details and tidbits, because 1) I don't care, and 2) neither do you, unless you're 15 or something. So let's see, what to say, what to say...?

"I love everyone, everyone underneath the sun." That's how the record starts, and yes, it's enough to make your molars hurt. But get two or three songs in and you start to realize that there is craft at work here. These are pop songs, if not in the sense that they are popular, but in the sense that they are meant to be popular, i.e., you are meant to like them. For some people, people too hip for their own pants, this will come off as easy listening pap. Old fashioned, cloying, lacking edginess, all those things. But I'm sorry, I like a good melody and I like a good SONG. I also appreciate a band that has taken the care to write and perform a good SONG with the respect it deserves. The one behind-the-scenes tidbit I will include here is the fact that these songs were reportedly recorded around one microphone, in the tradition of Elvis' Sun Sessions. It says something about the band's cohesiveness, its singularity of purpose, and above all, its respect for the songs they're laying down. Gathered together in a circle, facing each other, playing your parts, there's nowhere to hide, and you better believe in what you are doing.

On the minus side, like Macca's solo work, the craft could be elevated to another plane by some contact with real human emotion. This might bring some profundity and timelessness to the proceedings that is noticeably absent. One exception is the bittersweet What you do, whose arpeggio guitar riff is so beautiful it gives meaning to ordinary lyrics and points the way forward for a band that won't be young forever and will need to probe deeper to go from pleasant to sublime.