Given the weakness of so much of the brothers Reid’s post-1992 output, last autumn’s comeback single, Jamcod, was an unexpected triumph – the sound of a band rediscovering the combination of melody and dissonance that made their 1980s records so thrilling. That it’s the standout track on their first album since 2017’s patchy Damage and Joy is no surprise. Less predictably, though, there’s plenty else on Glasgow Eyes – recorded at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom studio in the city – that’s almost as good.
The Eagles and the Beatles is a knowing love letter to classic rock set to I Love Rock’n’Roll’s riff; the Suicide-adjacent Venal Joy reprises the mechanised throb of 1989’s Automatic; the more restrained Chemical Animal smoulders winningly, while Second of June recalls the prettiness that always lay beneath Psychocandy’s layers of feedback. There are inevitable longueurs as well, mind: Pure Poor gives dirges a bad name, and closer Hey Lou Reid fancies itself as an epic but instead just feels like an extraordinarily slow six minutes. Still, the fact that Glasgow Eyes is three-quarters of a good record is reason for celebration.
