Album: Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade | reviews, news & interviews Album: Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade
Album: Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade
Line-up changes are no obstacle to sustained excellence
by Kieron TylerMonday, 26 April 2021
A few hurdles need jumping before grappling with the essence of Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album.
Endless Arcade is their first without bassist and founder member Gerard Love. He, alongside Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley, was one of the band’s songwriters. And this is their first with former Gorky s Zygotic Mynci mainstay and solo artist Euros Childs in the line-up on keyboards.
A few hurdles need jumping before grappling with the essence of Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album.
The bandâs long-term keyboardist and guitarist Dave McGowan ended up taking Loveâs role on bass, while new member Euros Childs, formerly of Welsh indie band Gorkyâs Zygotic Mynci, was drafted in on keyboards. Blake had previously collaborated with Childs on their side project Jonny. âWe toured together with Gorkyâs years and years ago, and me and Euros became fast friends and we have been for a long time. And personality-wise, heâs a really good guy; heâs a great musician and a great singer, but he brought his own style of playing to the whole thing.â
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Teenage Fanclub have always been a band you can rely on for big harmonies, big tunes and songs that evoke the radiant joy of The Byrds or Big Star. Long-term fans may approach this 10th album with some trepidation after the departure of founding member and bassist Gerry Love in 2018 but the indie veterans from Belshill, on the outskirts of Glasgow, have long been masters at giving their crowd what they need at the same time as subtly exploring new territory. To that end, Endless Arcade chimes and jangles much as you would both want and expect. As on 2010’s Shadows and 2016’s Here, there is no shortage of joyously familiar fare: Warm Embrace’s close harmonies sound like they’ve been beamed in from the summer of 1965, as do the groovy double-time handclaps of Everything Is Falling Apart.
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