一聽音樂網

Fence Records darlings Kid Canaveral make a long-awaited and welcome return with Now That You Are a Dancer, the follow-up to 2010’s compelling Shouting at Wildlife. The four-piece’s debut was a gem of an album, deliciously DIY in aesthetic but packed with gloriously compact sing -a-long indie anthems, characterised by the kind of shimmering, uplifting, heart-soaring melodies that run through the Scottish pop tradition.
Hardly the most prolific of bands in their seven year existence — they met at St Andrews University in 2005 — what they lack in productivity they more than make up for in quality. There isn’t anything close to a dud on Now You Are A Dancer and from the opening bars of the insanely catchy The Wrench there follows a slightly manic, utterly captivating 10-song arc of tales about alcohol-drenched break-ups, school-day horror stories and stumbling through the error-strewn experiences of getting older.
The album takes its title from a line in Who’s Looking At You Anyway?, one of those poignant snapshots of a complicated life dressed up as a warm, snappy, hook-laden pop song, the kind Kid Canaveral do so well. This is followed by second songwriter Kate Lazda’s Skeletons — most of the album is written by lead singer David MacGregor — a hypnotic, languid, menacing track that in many ways sounds nothing like what MacGregor might write, but provides a fantastic counterpoint to his sense of urgency. Now That You Are A Dancer bows out in a fuzz of feedback and flooded harmonies with A Compromise. And yet there is none and this is Kid Canaveral’s greatest strength.