Trashcan Sinatras: Weightlifting

In rock 'n' roll time, eight years can be forever, a span in which careers run their course while trends become omnipresent and then invisible: Nirvana's entire existence lasted less than eight years, and The Beatles' studio catalog spans about seven. For Scottish band Trashcan Sinatras, which popped its head into the college-radio consciousness with its 1990 debut Cake, eight years only marks the time between albums three and four. (It's been 11 since the group released anything in America, as 1996's A Happy Pocket never came out here.) That kind of eternity—spent, in this case, dealing first with serious financial problems, and then battling to get a recording just right—could easily lead to public amnesia. Half a lifetime spent nearly silent seems almost tragicomic for a band that never split up, and setting its ship upright requires a punchy reintroduction. Weightlifting admirably and eloquently fills the bill.

Though clearly made by the same Trashcan Sinatras that went missing during Clinton's second term, Weightlifting feeds off a palpable melancholy that the group only flirted with before. It begins with the crashing, pointed "Welcome Back," a not-so-coy proclamation of reemergence that soars into a chorus of "Everyone's alive / Everyone survived." After that initial burst of energy, though, Weightlifting settles into an alternately joyful and reflective string of smart, gentle pop songs that should have fans of The Smiths and/or Crowded House waxing weepily nostalgic. On the shimmering, jangly side sit "All The Dark Horses" and "It's A Miracle," which play at the sort of straightforward pop manufactured by other Scots, both past (Teenage Fanclub, whose Norman Blake guests) and present (Belle And Sebastian, whose Stuart Murdoch is a fan).

The real strength of Weightlifting stems from its vulnerability: For much of the album, singer Francis Reader explores mending with grown-up grace. Sure, Trashcan Sinatras songs occasionally ride dangerously close to the adult-contemporary world (the weeping guitar on "Leave Me Alone," for example), but only in search of something simply adult. Weightlifting never slips into the trap of facile good humor; instead, it works quietly and tunefully through personal shakeups (the dually brilliant "Usually" and "A Coda"), life in general ("What Women Do To Men"), and a title track that ties it all together with poise won by experience. It's the sound of a proud, hard-fought reappearance delivered delicately, with chins up.