Album: Pugwash, The Olympus Sound (Lojinx)

With the Seventies back in guilty-pleasure fashion, The Olympus Sound could be the album to bring Thomas Walsh's Pugwash the success he deserves.

The guest collaborators – Ben Folds, Andy Partridge, Neil Hannon – indicate the type of smart-pop terrain traversed, from the languid ELO-isms of "Answers on a Postcard", with its fuzzy fairground organ, bells and whistles, to the echoes of "Tomorrow Never Knows" swirling like incense smoke through psych-pop homages such as "There You Are". The Pugwash charm is evident throughout, with a pleasing tone of sweetened isolation to "Fall Down" and "See You Mine (Coda)", while Walsh's gift for lyrics of deep simplicity is best demonstrated in the latter's line, "Everybody needs someone who will share in the pain of a life undone."

DOWNLOAD THIS Answers on a Postcard; 15 Kilocycle Tone; See You Mine (Coda); Here We Go 'Round Again