The Cathode Ray – Infinite Variety

OK, ‘infinite variety’ might be stretching things a little. Still, there’s plenty to digest on this Edinburgh quartet’s second album, from post-punk to prog, Mott The Hoople to My Bloody Valentine. Indeed, so deftly does opener Backed Up mix Syd Barrett with XTC that it’d be tempted to cite Modern Life Is Rubbish-era Blur as a touchstone, were it not for a gloriously Mick Ronson-esque guitar break. Far more hedonistically pure than Damon Albarn’s studious smarts would have allowed for, it nonetheless fits The Cathode Ray’s stirring glam pretensions like a glittering velvet glove.

Having spent over 30 years on the indie periphery, it’s fair to say that songwriter Jeremy Thoms has had enough time to learn a trick or two. What makes his quintessentially British art-pop so thrilling, however, is the slow shift from themes of desperation and loss to an ultimate realisation of love, identity and purpose – perfectly echoed in the jagged jangles of Force Of Nature and Saving Grace’s slow-burning coda. Record collector rock, maybe, but of the most alluring kind.