Despite 15 Top 40 singles in the Britpop years, York’s finest never escaped the slipstream of Blur and Oasis. However, they did win hearts, and since re-forming in 2007 have become a hot live ticket. Sensibly, they haven’t rushed into the studio, but waited until they had the songs to match their back catalogue. For their first album in 16 years, producer Youth has brought bells, whistles, trumpets, female backing vocals, strings and presumably the studio kitchen sink to embellish their trademark jangling swagger. There are some surprises: People Will Talk echoes, of all people, the Nolan Sisters. Rick Witter’s lyrics have an everyday charm (“I fell for ya, Victoria”), but few bands are as adept at turning indefinable, touching, northern melancholy into huge, uplifting anthems. There are plenty of those here, and Nothing to Live Down, Invincible and especially Better Days – their best song since 1996’s Chasing Rainbows – should prolong the quintet’s unexpected Indian summer.
