Meursault - 'All Creatures Will Make Merry'

There’s something in the Scottish make up that’s more than a little dark and melancholy isn’t there? Take Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons for example...okay, let’s keep this musical then. How about Arab Strap, Glasvegas and The Twilight Sad? That’s some dark shit going on there. Happily (maybe that’s the wrong word here) I rather like the dark shit, somehow it makes you realise that things (despite being covered in volcanic ash and subjected to David Cameron’s smug leering face every 30 seconds) ain’t so bad after all. Hailing from Edinburgh Meursault join this grand tradition of Scots miserablists with their new album, ironically titled ‘All Creatures Will Make Merry’. It’s uneasy listening, veering between the ultra Low Fi of ‘One Day This’ll Will Be Fields’ (which sounds like it’s been recorded on a well worn bit of tape then rubbed against some sandpaper before being buried in a tin can for a month...but that’s a good thing) and the full on sonic assault of ‘What You Don’t Have’ (which sounds like the Jesus and Mary Chain at a rave...in a steelworks). Elsewhere there’s a more traditional folk flavour (think the Fence Collective) on tracks like ‘Another’ which just about gives you time to recover your thoughts before the album’s standout track ‘Song For Martin Kippenberger’ (heavy drinking German artist who died of liver cancer in 1997...you’re getting the picture here right?) pummels what’s left of your positivity into a bloody pulp with lead singer Neil Pennycook screaming “Please don’t save me” against a haunting backdrop of strings and piano. If, in the words of our Scottish cousins, you like a “wee dram of the hard stuff” this album will blow you away.

All Creatures Will Make Merry is out on Song, by Toad Records on May 24^th