Written by: Dave Cantrell

From the off, on Spectrals’ new album Sob Story, we’re treated to a twanging earnestness that’s identifiably British and harkens, with an unforced élan, back to the pre-punk glory days of Dr Feelgood, Bees Make Honey, Brinsley Schwarz and the rest of that gang that rocked the pubs in the early-to-mid 70’s. Come to think of it, it would, frankly, be almost cruel if Nick Lowe didn’t offer to produce the band’s next album and in fact first single “A Heartbeat Behind,” a sad-sack tale of the perennial second chancer – all country boogie jump, lilting chorus and the irresistible hammer of a drum track worthy of Terry Williams – is such prime Lowe material we could tack it on as a bonus track to a reissue of the grey eminence’s Labour Of Lust and see if anyone notices. Singer (and, to be accurate, the entire band) L’s flat, nasal vocal tone – as if, like a real trooper, he’s singing with a slight cold – proves most apt here, more than suitably matching the pubby honesty of the song’s heritage vibe.

‘L’ is a young man from the north of England known by his mum as Louis Jones and it’s remarkable the sanguine authority with which he creates these songs. The title track mines the beer-crying depths of Elvis Costello circa “Motel Matches,” Sneaky Pete-y pedal steel and everything. “Milky Way” hops in on a Ramones hey-ho-let’s-go intro before merging into the tasty steady pound of a mid-tempo bar rocker with some fetching Northern Soul aspirations (Jones does call what he does ‘poor soul,’ after all), L’s refrain of ‘She couldn’t be you if she tried’ fitting the form like a perfectly tailored John Stephen suit. “Friend Zone” is a four-handkerchief weepy that underscores Spectrals’ widescreen ability to master any style in its quiver, its molasses slow pace not only enriched, again, by the lachrymal touches of pedal steel but as well the unabashedly naked vocal take, L dialing it down to the latest late-night confessional level without any sense of artifice or posturing. It’s masterful, and you believe him.

We do sag a bit in the middle, “Something To Cry About” and “Blue Whatever” pushing all the right buttons but lacking that crucial ‘it’ factor that songs hoping to ride this particular stylistic wave gotta have to avoid mere homage. True, the former reaches for it in its bass-punched chorus but, ultimately, it’s still a B-side searching for a hit to partner with.

Thankfully, though, Sob Story sallies out a winner, “Keep Your Magic Out of My House” is a deliberate, mildly dirty choogle not unreminiscent of the Feelgoods channeling T.Rex, “Gentle” another pedal-steeled (though uptempo) gem that Joe Jackson would be a fool not to cover and closer “In A Bad Way” a love-forsaken lament attended by a repeated picked electric figure that mimics the one-note plea of the lyric (sample: ‘I’m in a bad way and I don’t see how that can change’) and a nightmare carnival organ persisting with the same atonality of a broken heart. It’s as if Costello’s “I Want You” had been stripped bare by Richard Hawley, sung with a quavering plainness wrenching enough to earn a spot on every post-breakup mixtape henceforth.

Taken as a whole, Sob Story, like a Little Barrie album, is perhaps a little retro-blokey, but then again pub rock itself wasn’t exactly packed with XX-chromosomes and the world didn’t seem to mind. Spectrals carry that torch nobly – which is to say unselfconsciously – forward into 2013, their own mark made, their own spark added.

– Dave Cantrell