TEENAGE FANCLUB
Nothing Lasts Forever (PeMa)
Both the title of Nothing Lasts Forever, Teenage Fanclub’s 11th LP and its first lines – “It’s time to move along / Leave the past behind” – make the listener feel like a newly divorced middle-aged dad getting a pep talk from a mate over a pint. But Nothing Lasts Forever hardly constitutes new beginnings or a radical reinvention.
Sure, Foreign Land opens with an arresting peal of feedback, Self Sedation bobs along like ELO, and the synth at the start of Falling Into The Sun – courtesy of Wales’ own Euros Childs, a permanent member since 2019 – briefly conjures up a mental image of the band clad in Bacofoil suits emerging from a rudimentary spacecraft onto the cardboard-and-polystyrene set of a 1960s sci-fi show. But otherwise, it’s very much familiar territory rather than foreign land: the Byrds, Big Star, wistful melodies.
Yet, like an old pair of slippers, there’s something warm and comforting about it all. If Middle Of My Mind encapsulates the feeling of finding yourself at the mercy of your own brain, It’s Alright offers reassurance through the mantra-like repetition of its title. Sometimes that’s just what you need to hear.
words BEN WOOLHEAD