Editorial Reviews
Music Review:
Music Review
Dirty Sexy Knights in Paris [Import]
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 7 / Wordsworth, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Bar Lounge Classics, Vol. 1 [Import]
Best Plus Live [Live] [Import]
Before Hollywood & Rarities [Original recording reissued]
Amazon.com
Don't be fooled by the ironic title. Club Anthems isn't a trance collection. This compilation of Ballboy's last three EPs chronicles an outfit poised between the wide-eyed philosophical Looper and the darker, melancholy Arab Strap. Club Anthems is a very Scottish album, but it's frontman Gordon McIntyre's spoken vocals--funny, poignant, heavy with pathos--that help Ballboy rise above simple pastiche. "One Sailor Was Waving" explodes grim Scottish fatalism into a celebratory adrenaline rush, MacIntyre wearing the line "I'm not the brightest hope/ I'm not the shining light/ Of my generation" like a badge of victory. Meanwhile, the stark, expansive, two-chord "I Hate Scotland" scribbles bratty discontent over Ballboy's cultural heritage. "I hate the way we expect to fail," sneers McIntyre, "and then we fail, and we get bitter because we failed." Well, this album proves that's just not true. --Louis Pattison
Album Description
Manifesto Records release 'Club Anthems', 'The cream of the Edinburgh scene', Melody Maker... 'a lot like The Wedding Present playing hopscotch with Belle & Sebastian', NME. Includes video for I Hate Scotland. 2002.