1990s - Kicks

While Kicks, 1990s' second album, sticks to familiar lyrical territory - namely, girls and Glasgow - the band have democratised their songwriting process: drummer Michael McGaughrin's 59 (named for the bus to Pollokshields), a breezy '80s pop number complete with trebly bass, rubs shoulders with guitarist McKeown's duet with ex-Long Blonde Kate Jackson on Kickstrasse, an incendiary ode to Baader-Meinhof. They've also opened up their musical influences, picking out their favourite elements of everything they've heard and piecing them together to create endearingly off-kilter Pop Hits that seem almost machine-built... if the machine were an old Zanussi, that is. 1990s have created an album that's enjoyably familiar, grounded firmly in pop's pick-and-mix tradition; however, their synthesis of sounds from the past is at the same time oddly anachronistic and disorienting. A nice counterbalance between an avant-garde construction and a damn good listen - just for Kicks. [Gillian Watson]