From: Mike Vullo this is the new album review from Q magazine(my apologies to those who already have it): over the past eight years,the pride of Greenock have made music like the most conscientious sort of pal-music that mashed the byrds and badfinger,big star and neil young and moby grape into big screwy-grinned shrugs and invaluably heartening slaps on the back. even when lacing their sprightly,west coast guitars and knitting their sextet of beach boy tonsils around tales of crumbling love("there are things i'd like to do/but i'm not sure if they will be with you,"grimaced the peerless alchoholiday)there was always a subtext of hey-ho,everything flows.and with the departure of drummer and chief chaos-monger brendan o'hare and the advent of 1995's grand prix,teenage fanclub's impish joie de vivre seemed finally to have been channeled into a form that everyone could enjoy.the singing/songwriting core of norman blake,gerry love and raymond mcginley,set free by paul quinn's metronomic snare tick,had delivered a set of preternaturally perfect pop songs,a place for every note and sound,and every note and sound in it's place. against which,it's difficult not to see grand prix's successor as the anti-follow-up -a willfully murkier,momentum-halting record.the mid-game withdrawal of tom petty producer david bianco-the architect,retrospect infers,of grand prix's ruthlessly spare sonics-might explain the lack of discipline and brilliance,but it's the writing that really disappoints.formerly to be relied on for wry quips in abundance,blake's start again and i don't want control of you are gushing,rather trite reflections on the loveliness of marriage,and where previously gerry love would drive a teenage fanclub record into higher gear with a blizzard of primary pop colors,a tight,manque hit like a radio or a sparky's dream,his finest contribution here is ain't that enough-nagging enough,for sure,but,even by the fanclub's reverential standards,too byrdsian for comfort. failure is,naturally,a relative term;umpteen debuts of genuine promise will emerge this year with but half of this album's grace and playability.moreover,mcginley,always the quiet treasure of teenage fanclub records,is in top nick.the brittle,tumbling riff of it's a bad world introduces a note of typically sweetly-turned grumpiness,while the guitar gospel of i don't care(bathetically embroidered with cheesy moog quacks)is grand.had bad luck and illness not intervened,as sources close to the band relate,and songs from northern britain surfaced last year,we might be looking at a welcome telegram from the front line.as the next chapter in the fanclub story,however,it could have done with a more demanding editor.