Broken Family Band - Please and Thank You

For Album Number Seven, most of the comparisons applied to the Broken Family Band’s past albums still stand: wittily cynical lyrics set to music that’s a wee bit Wilco, a wee bit power-pop Bluetones and a wee bit less Americana than the album before. Lyrically the results range from amusing - “no-one wants to fuck you” in St. Albans, apparently - to touchingly bittersweet on closing track Old Wounds and wryly on-the-money in Cinema Vs. House (which considers the benefits of popular dating options). Musically they continue their melodic trajectory away from the folky alt-country of their early days, creating an instantly pleasurable indie-rock record that resembles Brendan Benson fronting the Apples in Stereo. Just don’t mistake this fashionably breezy sound for hipster-pandering; as the opener’s snarling ruckus politely requests, unimpressed naysayers should go back to their hotels and euphemistically ‘please themselves’. Be sure to stay in this band’s good books, then.