Orange Juice
You Can't Hide Your Love Forever

THE REVIEW

If you don't mind the fringe of that guy from the Babyshambles, if you're fond of the indie fathers, if you want something British but not overly commercialized, if your musical paradise is that middle ground in the '78-'82 five-year span, if you're charmed by Ian Curtis, David Byrne, and Morrissey, if you've even managed to hunt down Rupert Everett's record, then I think it's time you meet the (then) young Edwyn Collins and his smooth lock of hair over his eyes.

This album, as can be easily learned from the web, has been judged by Mojo magazine as the second-best album in the history of British independent music (with the Smiths at the top), ahead of folks like Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, XTC, and the like. Yet, you haven't heard much about these Orange Juice around, have you? Not even in the vast debaserian landscapes.

The fact remains that, within that very recent ranking (for whatever it's worth, mind you), ahead of your favorite Anglo-Saxon band, whatever it may be - except one -, there are four guys from Glasgow who, at the dawn of the eighties, created "the sound of young Scotland", mixing roots of British post-punk, watery melodies worthy of the purest new wave, almost unfeasible disco, funky, and pop illusions of adolescence.

The Orange Juice are amusing, obviously, since the name they chose; nourishing and tasty, refreshing but tart. Their guitars are amusing, electric and post-punk, but patient and plucking, slow yet free, and still calm. Edwyn Collins is entertaining but not only, with a deep and warm voice that at first glance doesn’t seem to fit his effeminate figure; but then you start to enjoy the melodies, starting with "Falling And Laughing", and you feel it’s no less persuasive than the Manchester dandy. A pour of honey jam on a steaming already buttered bruschetta. Bread butter jam and orange juice.

What are you waiting for to listen? A calm sea of sweet but not foolish, not trivial notes awaits you. Awaiting you are four Scots with magical fingers who, despite their undeniable taste for melody, still prioritize making music together rather than making songs. And so the tracks veer, slightly deviate, giving you the sensation that Orange Juice could slip out of your hands at any moment, but in the end, they chose not to for reasons they’re not obliged to explain to you. Maybe they’re saying "we’re a real rock band, remember; it's just that we want to make beautiful songs, rather than a ruckus", and anyway Collins already had a punk band back in the day, called Nu Sonic.

In the end, you listen to this concoction in which you don't find an unworthy note, even if not all the pop styles in between are your favorites, so you reflect on the playfulness, the irony that overwhelms this album, and you recall a band that makes the young girls of Albion dance and go wild, called Franz Ferdinand: they're Scottish too, aren't they?

Byrds-like arpeggios, White Duke glam, Strummer punk, Talking Heads popwave, and a desire to take themselves lightly that has nothing of Morrissey and Marr. Moreover, the fact that they're not known to most makes it all the more endearing. Simple scribbles, relaxed airs, and jog-like dashes: "You Can't Hide Your Love Forever" slides as if it were pouring, note after note, an impression to which another hooks on, and so on, until the end of the album, incessantly.

Listening to it is like splashing around. And this is pop for dolphins. Enjoy.