Colin Macintyre (aka Mull Historical Society) pleads
“I’m not cool anymore, stay with me honey” on the
opening track, ‘Peculiar’, of third studio album This
is Hope. Following up on the mainstream success of 2003’s
Usit contains eleven tracks of innocuous melodic pop that aspire
to latter- day Beatledom. Indeed, coolness is not the impression secured by repeated
exposure to the album; MacIntyre’s production, mixing up his
Hebridean lyrical fixation with orchestral and choral samples,
sounds more suited to a pipe and slippers, than to air guitaring
with a JD in hand. Moments of retro redemption prevent Mull Historical
Society’s full immersion in the spirit of blandness
popularised by David Gray and Coldplay. ‘Casanova at the
Weekend’ owes a significant debt to Coldplay and their
contemporaries. ’Death of A Scientist’, however, is a
welcome interjection of Kinks karaoke and ‘Your Love, My
Gain’ safely traverses into the territory of the classic
nostalgic ballad. A harmless exercise in creating an album largely composed of
audio non-entities, the lacklustre listening experience that is
This is Hopeis not a complete ‘Hebridean Disaster’.
Perhaps an attempted wreck is what MacIntyre was seeking to
reveal to his mainland audience. If it was, he failed, but only
just. Instead of this, the Mull Historical Society has
prematurely matured, and produced, hope and an egalitarian
soundtrack for Bovril drinkers everywhere.ARCHIVE: 2nd week TT 2004
Mull Historical Society: This is Hope
