Credit: Found On Internet

In our interview with him last year, Sons and Daughters guitarist and backing vocalist, Scott Paterson, described this record, as “a pop record in the sense The Specials was pop, that Blondie was pop…where it’s really catchy but has a great lyrical side to it. It’s definitely not smooth”. If you’re running short on time and don’t have the minutes to spare reading this review of This Gift, you could do a lot worse than taking Paterson’s description and adding a solid Glasgow kiss’ worth of indie-gloom.

With Bernard Butler on production duties, the band a crisper, fuller sound than before, but the natural grit of Glasgow’s Sons and Daughters has kept that edge they sharpened out with their last two records. In this age awash with identikit indie, it comes with great relief that they haven’t lost those firm Caledonian inflections. Vocalist Adele Bethel has taken a firm hold of the record, this time around taking sole responsibility for the barbed lyrics. Matched with her sultry Scots-accented delivery, and it took us a while to notice that Paterson’s role as backing vocalist feels much more low-key than on past releases by the band.

Lead single, ‘Darling’ winks out your stereo with a schadenfreude-esque sense that it knows something we, the listeners don’t. But rather than feel suckered or subject to condescension, when Bethel’s breathlessly delivering “twist it in, twist it out the knife, paying for your past strife, she’ll make a darling bride”, it feels like we’re being invited to fill in our own gaps while she’s vocalising the verbal equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

Starting off wintry and stand-offish, ‘Gilt Complex’ manages to mix the heady 60s blues-rock paranoia with a call-to-arms chorus, to give a two-fingered, six-string salute to the vacuousness of the cult of modern celebrity. ‘Rebel With A Ghost’ has the kind of scuzzed-up guitar line and accompanying naa-na-na-na na-na na-na na that is reminiscent of Jon Spencer at his stompiest, thumping best. While it would be hyperbolic to liken Butler’s production to either Phil Spector or Joe Meek, the whole of This Gift seems to effortless slip between a modern Wall of Sound-esque battering to a more Meek-ist echoing church of reverb.