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Review: 'Sweetheart Revue, The'
'Good News, Bad News'   

-  Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '19.11.21.'

Our Rating:
As I came to edit this album review and look for a video to add to the review I realized that some how I had managed to download the album as being by another band entirely and after extensive editing it is now correctly titled and a massive Faux Pas has been avoided. Which is just as well as The Sweetheart Revue's main songwriter Gerard Sampaio has more than enough to deal with as he has an inoperable brain tumor a fact that adds a layer or two of extra meaning to the songs on this rather beautiful album of gentle Scottish indie folk.

The album opens with the gentle Fall Back that sets the tone for this album of gentle fey indie pop that's often quite gorgeous as with this song the backing vocals are often rather pretty as they sing about the lover who's like a hurricane and the damage they leave in their wake, even if the song is more like the gentlest of breezes.

Obvious has an early 70's folk rock argument feel to it, as the lovers tiff unfolds in the lyrics as the guitars go all Little Feat or Gallagher And Lyle.

Sodium Glow has sweeps of strings like a very bucolic Belle And Sebastian song, as gentle as the glow from those Sodium lights.

Careless Showdowns is a whispered account of a nasty fight that would have been much louder and violent than the gently careworn accompaniment that sounds very Scottish, with a violin part that sounds like it comes from a 17th century folk dance tune.

The B-Side opens with End Of The World that starts off all coy and fey before breaking out into something a bit more forceful and by the time the trumpets come in it has an almost Spanish/Mexican twist to it.

Positive is full of a sense of renewal as he's picked up the pieces and is hoping to be able to start again with a good attitude and angelic backing vocals as well as some wonderfully lush trumpets and again is reminiscent of Belle And Sebastian.

How Deep It Goes is kind of dictated by the Cello and how deeply they can bow this gently intoxicating duet as they find out How Deep it Goes without the slushy sentimentality of the song that first springs to mind from that title.

Sister And Brother almost sounds like a cover version and I can't quite name the song it so clearly reminds me of, while sounding like they wish they could have produced this song at Big Pink while channeling Simon and Garfunkel to come up with a song that's just as beautiful as that might or might not suggest.

The album closes with Good News, Bad News that opens in a very sparse way with an acoustic guitar strummed as the story unfolds as you realize just what news you've received, when you got The Call we all dread getting, as well as just how bad that news really is, how will you deal with it and will the violin soothe your aching heart and ameliorate your grief, as the trumpet gets as blue as your mood.

Find out more at https://shop.lastnightfromglasgow.com/products/the-sweetheart-revue-good-news-bad-news?_pos=1&_sid=2ef992a24&_ss=r https://www.facebook.com/thesweetheartrevue



  author: simonovitch

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