November 09 2007
Emma Pollock — Watch the Fireworks
posted by Steven Shaw at 11:00 am
Emma Pollock Watch The Fireworks (4AD)
Yeah, I know — it probably would’ve been better to review an album called Watch The Fireworks before Guy Fawkes.
Although this is Emma Pollock’s debut solo album, she’s a hands-on veteran of the Scottish indie scene — she spent a decade in the Mercury Music prize-nominated band The Delgados, and co-founded Glasgow-based indie label Chemikal Underground, which released acts like Mogwai and Arab Strap.
It’s not what you’d call a heavy album, but it’s also nowhere near as twee sounding as a lot of music from those parts. Pollock has more in common with Tanya Donelly’s Throwing Muses than Belle and Sebastian.
Watch the Fireworks kicks off with “New Land”, a baroque-pop waltz at the carnival, before moving through the Breeders-like “Acid Test” and the piano-comping of “Paper & Glue”.
There are some really delicate moments, as on the gently-sung, guitar-arpeggioed “Limbs” or “This Rope’s Getting Tighter”, but it also bursts forth with generous pop colours on songs like “Here Comes The Heartbreak” and “Adrenaline” — which I initially feared was about to bust into Toto’s “Hold The Line”. Thankfully, it didn’t go anywhere near power ballad territory.
The strength on this album lies in its strong pop melodies and arrangements — it’s produced by Victor Van Vugt, who has worked with Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and Beth Orton. I found the lyrics just a little too ambiguous and personal — they’re largely meaningless from the outside. But Pollock’s reedy voice is simply gorgeous, and combined with her keen instinct for melody, she delivers a pretty good solo debut. Not a fizzer by any means, but it won’t light up the night sky.