Album: The Zephyrs

A Year To The Day, Setanta

The Scots indie-rockers The Zephyrs suffered a stroke of misfortune when their chums Mogwai, impressed by their 1999 debut, It's OK Not to Say Anything, signed them up to their Southpaw label for the 2001 follow-up When the Sky Comes Down It Comes Down on Your Head. And so it did: the week the album was released, Southpaw collapsed and, along with it, the planned promotional push, the tour support and the publishing deal. But the return to Dayjob Central has paid dividends for the Nicol brothers, Stuart and David, who have pitched up on Setanta with an impressive third offering. They have crafted a series of understated songs whose delicate guitar embroidery occupies the grey area between country, indie and post-rock. The opening "Lacuna Head" creeps in slowly, a tangle of arpeggios and distortion serving as the overture to "Go Slow", which does what it says, its methodical progress of guitars and drums given epiphanic weight by a poignant Hammond-organ break from Super Furry Animals' Cian Ciaran. Elsewhere, "Washed to the Shore" sounds like a softer Doves, while "Empty Eyes" recalls Low. Songwriter Stuart Nicol, meanwhile, displays a penchant for analogising emotional turmoil in meteorological images, and an affinity with the natural world which finds its reflection in the gently organic process of The Zephyrs' performances.