Attic Lights are something of an enigma. On paper they should be an unsavoury prospect: their street-cred is damaged (in my eyes) by touring with Scouting For Girls and re-recording the theme from Minder for the Channel 5 series. Not promising, granted. But with Super De Luxe, Attic Lights’ brand of radio-friendly power pop is unfailingly listenable.
This album is likeably up-tempo MOR indie powerpop, and if you heard it for the first time at the disco you’d probably (if you’re anything like me) slide onto the dancefloor and shake your thing. But Super De Luxe seems to be from The Indie Disco That Time Forgot – appropriate given that the album’s named after a jukebox. Part of me loves it deeply. Part of me believes that very few other people will.
Stay Before You Leave has, in fact, stayed with me and had me humming it for a solid 48 hours afterwards. Fans of beautifully produced britpop anthems will love it. But much of the album reaches for – and misses – tributes to other acts. Everything is sub-something. Sub-Oasis. Sub-Teenage Fanclub. Sub-Feeder (remember them?), sub-Travis (ditto) even.
No tracks offend or are bad per se. And fans of Glaswegian accents (like me) will be pleased with the vocals, but sometimes the singers’ voice drones like an underpowered John Power.
Attic Lights throw the odd ballad into the mix to keep things fresh. Gabrielle is an achey-breaky ending to the album, but it leaves me still a little unsatisfied. Nice. Memorable. But unfathomably I want something more.
Yes – the melodies are indeed luminous, but the Attic Lights do feel like they’ve been kept in the attic for a couple of decades too long.
6/10
by Rob Finch
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