TEENAGE FANCLUB NORMAN BLAKE - GUITAR & VOCALS GERARD LOVE - BASS & VOCALS RAYMOND MCGINLEY - GUITAR & VOCALS PAUL QUINN - DRUMS You join us at Air Studios, London, for the completion of the fifth album by Teenage Fanclub. All is well. So well, in fact, that the lead singer is currently from the band currently completing their new album in the neighbouringroom has felt compelled to pay his compliments to the creators personally. "You're a fucking great band, man", he blathers somewhere in the direction of Raymond McGinley. "Top songs, top tunes, top band. The best fucking band in the world!" "What?" says Raymond. "The best band in the world?!" Liam Gallagher is momentarily chastened. Well no, obviously not the best band. "Oasis are up here", he gestures as far above his head as can be reached. "But you lot are down here" - gestures somewhere down towards his knee. "So that makes you the best fucking band....apart from me." And there you have it. It's official. Teenage Fanclub are the second best band in the world. Anyone who disagrees, see the younger Gallagher this instant. It logically follows, therefore, that the new Teenage Fanclub album is the second best album to be released this year. At the very least. Step back to 1995. Teenage Fanclub are completing six months of tour duties in the name of enlightening the world to the glories of their fourth album, "Grand Prix". After 1993's tortuously conceived and hesitantly executed "Thirteen", they feel buoyed with new-found optimism and self-belief. With a stable, relaxed internal combustion hastened by the arrival of Paul Quinn in place of Brendan O'Hare, the four principals are excited, but not about the present. The future beckons. Thoughts are with the next record, the record where they feel Teenage Fanclub can truly reap the benefits of this joi de vivre. "I think we've still to make a great record", Gerard Love said then. "There'll be one in the future, hopefully the next one. I think there's enough space for us to develop into a really great band, on our own terms." The future is no longer unwritten. The great Teenage Fanclub album is here. It is called "Songs From Northern Britain", and they are very happy with it. "I'm very happy with it", says Norman Blake, happily. "I was very happy with "Grand Prix", but listening to that now, the way we play songs live seems a lot more exciting, so I think the recordings on this new album are exciting on that level, and I think the playing's better and the arrangements are more, err arranged! Making records is all about being confident and having faith in your ability. The more records we make, the better we get at making them." Happy as they evidently were with "Grand Prix", its directness of approach represented a reaction to its predecessor. The new Teenage Fanclub albumbrings to bear unprecedented reserves of boldness and aplomb on the part of its authors. Sensitive to "Thirteen's" perceived failure, "Grand Prix" was made under a certain amount of pressure to deliver. Not so "Songs From Northern Britain", which unfolds in a welter of cherishably orchestrated musical devotion. It's quintessential Fanclub, but with more...everything. More delirious harmonies, more sincerely articulated emotions, more heartbreaking melodies, and more deployment of exotic remaindered '70's keyboard technology. "You don't really know what to expect next on this album", Norman considers. "There are loads of extremes. All the things on it we've used before, except they're more prominent on this one. We're always buying mad-looking instruments, so then we have to justify buying them by using them." Recorded with "Grand Prix" producer David Bianco last summer at Ridge Farm in Surrey, then completed last winter at Air. "Songs From Northern Britain" re-emphasises why Teenage Fanclub are at least three times better than most bands: they have three adept, distinctive and complementary songwriters when most bands are lucky to have one. Between them, Norman, Gerard and Raymond account for the entire Roget's Thesaurus entry for Love. The titles alone becon you in for a lengthy embrace: "I Don't Want Control of You", "Ain't That Enough", "Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From".... Norman: "I like songs that are honest and personal. The more songs I write, I try and make them more complete by having a lyric that means something and really works with the melody." Raymond: "I think it gets easier to let yourself write certain things that previously you might have thought was too embarrassing. I couldn't write a smart-arsed lyric." "No", agrees Norman, "It's too difficult. No! It's too easy! I hate the idea of being cool. It's music , you can't really be cool about music, you shouldn't use it as a fashion statement. Definitely when I was young I'd be worried about not being cool, thinking I cannae write lyrics with "love" in it 'cos that's not cool. It's a really naieve way to think. It's my ambition this year to be less hung up about being cool! The older I get I don'e even want to worry about that". As all good children should be aware, the sun shines on the righteous. This spring, Teenage Fanclub undertook a three day driving trip around Scotland, taking photographs to use for their new record's sleeve artwork. They visited the nuclear power station at Torness, saw the funfair being dismantled at Aviemore and played a round of golf under the gaze of Ben Nevis. It didn't rain once. "We're excited again", they say. The band is from Scotland and its name is Teenage Fanclub. The album is called "Songs From Northern Britain", because that's exactly what it is. To paraphrase that titan of modern philosophy Mr Gerard Love, all they want to do now is make the music they're happy with, and if nobody likes it....they're wrong.