58) Spearmint A Different Lifetime

We are on a band that I know the name again, but I have never heard a note of their music. A quick look on the internet shows they have been around since 1995 and have released ten albums. This is a career not someone you meet in the pub who tells you they played on an album in 1990 that was released in Belgium. I’m not knocking that, I would tell everyone if that was me.

The fifteen songs are linked and are all about the phases of a relationship. We start with It Will End so this is going to be a doom fest, very maudlin with lyrics like “Too soon or much too late. It will end.”

No, it’s nothing like that. This is a bright and breezy record, the playing is first class, some excellent strings and strong melodies.

I love the opening riffs of Stealing Beauty and Julie Christie and lead singer Shirley Lee has a voice that reminds me of Rialto’s Louis Eliot.

Scottish Pop is just magnificent, I’m obviously biased, but we have Edwyn, Bobby Gillespie and Stephen Pastel mentioned, trust me you don’t need to be Scottish to not end up tapping away to this one.

Wrapped Up Together is intense and beautiful, Flamin Lips is great guitar and Solace is an intelligent lament for the end of a relationship.

The title track is eight minutes long “And the time I spent with you, is the most perfect I have known, It already seems like it was stolen, from a different lifetime.”

Another unjust moment from the UK record buying public that this record never sold millions. Give it a go.

8/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Scottish Pop (Sorry it just had to be)