"The main problem with writing songs about big ideas is you inevitably sound like a knob when asked to talk about them" admits David Moyes, the brains and voice behind this high-minded quartet from Dunfermline.
The big ideas in question here revolve around doubt and a loss of faith and accounts for the group being misleadingly labelled as "Scotland's most subterranean, ecclesiastical rock band" ; a tag which makes them sound like either happy pranksters or loveable cranks when in truth they are neither.
You may also be sidetracked by the opening instrumental (Gal Gal) which leads you to expect some breed of Mogwai style post-rock.
While familiar arpeggios and crescendos abound, you are advised to keep your pigeon holes empty until you have heard the whole album.
In contrast to Gal Gal, the stark arrangements and morose vocals on Pascal and The First Will Be Last sound both fragile and heartfelt.
The confession on the latter that "my spirit is blackening fast" suggests that Moyes shares a kinship with the dark introspective souls of Ian Curtis or Will Oldham.
Taxidermy Of Love has particularly dark lyrics : "Make what cuts you need, slit the torso side, like curtains part the skin, take out the crap inside" while a song about living donor transplant surgery (The Soft Place) emphasises a fondness for the macabre.
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Such songs err too much towards melodrama and tend to undermine the more serious minded content of the album.
In many ways the defining song on the album is entitled My Bible Is. This deals with the holy book itself, musing upon the paradox that a work full of death and violence should also contain love and beauty.
This shows that Moyes is no aggressive secularist but rather someone renouncing the comforts of belief with a heavy heart. He also demonstrates a capacity for rendering abstract concepts in highly personal terms.
The band are to be praised for a bold, and ambitious record although the strong emphasis on existential musings does make it a somewhat bleak listen.
It is a work well suited to harsh wintry nights but unlikely to bring much of a glow to the heart.
Band website
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