The sweet, sweet slew of Christmas albums has finally landed, and in the last few days I’ve listened (shockingly belatedly) to the 2010 offerings by Bombay Bicycle Club, General Fiasco, Arcade Fire, etc. However the standout album so far has been ‘Boots Met My Face by girl-and-boy vocal-led Scottish six piece, Admiral Fallow

The cosy clarinet-led opening track ‘Dead Against Smoking”s opening notes have the homely, familiar sound of the Corrie them song, with its soporific lyrics, ”You sleep like a kid / Backside in the air, mouth half open” tricking you into thinking the album consists only of Elbow-esque supermarket advertisements, when in actuality the album is only sprinkled with such slow, sweet songs: the raw, paranoid - ”cameras in your bloodstream” - ‘Delivered’ evokes the melancholia of the second half** of Noah and the Whale’s sophomore ‘First Days of Spring’; sweetly strummed female-led ‘Bomb Through the Town’, fizzles into air raid siren-reminiscent reverb, evocatively begging, ”swallow my jealousy whole”.

But without giving you time to dry you tears, outside of these welcome anomalies, the album consists of upbeat, almost poppy tracks, such as the theatrically slowly started ‘Old Balloons’, whose closing 1 minute and  9 seconds triumphantly arrive with a driving beat and insistent ivory-chiming. The rollicking hay-romp of recent single, ‘Taste The Coast’ continues this sense of folky contentedness, at one point genuinely saying, ”don’t worry chum”! The sweetly titled ‘Squealing Pigs’  barn-dance instrumentation jars with the cheerfully-self pitying chorus of ”It’s a sinking feeling of being alone”.

But that’s one of two things Admiral Fallow do perfectly:

1. mix gorgeous instrumentation (sometimes stripped back, as in the sun-drenched electric guitar rolls of ‘Four Bulbs, sometimes complex, as in the gracefully built up ‘Subbuteo’, whose explosive conclusion invoves crashing drums, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, a flute, and a perfectly pitched lead clarinet) with somewhat less sunny, albeit eloquently expressed, earnest lyrics, such as ‘Squealing Pigs” self depreciating ”Zero soul - you’re a loser, son”, and
2. perfectly create nostalgia, whether through the choral ”ooh”s of ‘Four Bulbs’ reminding you of forced childhood church services, or through the heartwrenching love letter to the past, standout track ‘Subbuteo’, referring lovingly to ”the concrete that once claimed [their] knees” and the once-”towering trees”, while still looking optimistically to the future, as seen in the raucously yelled ”You’re free!” of ‘Taste the Coast’

This album is an absolute must for your collection, digital or otherwise. However, I must warn you that you are in danger of losing your job or getting kicked out of school or neglecting your kids or not taking in your washing - by the time lulling, unexpectedly xylophone-featuring closing track ‘Dead Leg’ rolls around, you will be permanently stuck on your sofa, listening to this record on full blast, singing along to every Scottish-accented word

Admiral Fallow - Subbuteo by user7696666

*I am so sorry for that dreadful pun

**Ok, the whole album :)

EDIT: Today I was caught singing along to ‘Dead Against Smoking’ on the train, apparently rather loudly … fml, eh