Love

Love was the third album Roddy Frame recorded as Aztec Camera. If and this is an "if" so big that most would be reluctant to scale it without sherpas, yaks and oxygen Roddy Frame's career has been characterised by anything, it has been a determination to do, at any given moment, roughly the last thing that was expected of him. Having already done the ragged acoustic troubadour (High Land, Hard Rain) and prematurely aged balladeer (Knife) bits while still in his teens, Frame relocated to New York for Love and made as pristine an album of Philadelphia soul as could reasonably be expected from a Clash fan from East Kilbride. Love is largely remembered for Aztec Camera's biggest hit — the exuberant "Somewhere in my Heart", in which Frame pronounced, against a backdrop of immaculate studio sheen, that "The closest thing to heaven is to rock and roll" — but deserves better. The dizzy Motown pastiche "Deep and Wide and Tall", and "More Than a Law" are both as good as Roddy Frame gets praise indeed and the closing track, the rueful lament "Killermont Street", sets a surely unbeatable standard in the hitherto under-subscribed category of great songs about bus stations. — Andrew Mueller.