Aberfeldy – Somewhere To Jump From

Not that we want to encourage Aberfeldy’s pathos, but being dropped by Rough Trade, losing several band members and potentially being remembered for sound-tracking a Diet Coke advert could make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Fair play to mainstay Riley Briggs for his steely determination to plough on regardless with, um, Somewhere To Jump From.

The title track may well evoke a gentle melancholy but it would be hard to come away feeling blue from an album that later imagines Michael Jackson’s plea to Lisa-Marie Presley not to leave him, backed by a supermarket-style jingle of Madonna’s Holiday. Lead single Malcolm’s tongue-tripping verse and brush-drummed gaiety is another highlight and whilst If I Were A Joiner may reach new levels of twee daftness (“I’d put up a shelf, a shelf about you”) with repeated listens even those averse to such meek, homespun charms will likely admit that the world’s a better place with Aberfeldy in it. [Darren Carle]