Album Review: The Pastels - Slow Summits

Has it really been 16 years since we received an album proper from The Pastels? The Glaswegian band haven't been sitting idle, procuring soundtracks, art installations and summoning the excellent Two Sunsets split with Japan's Tenniscoats back in 2009. Nevertheless it's exciting to finally have something to cherish that's solely their own work, and Slow Summits doesn't disappoint. 

Secret Music starts things off, a shuffling intro in sync with Tenniscoats' own stand-alone All Aboard album of last year. Katrina Mitchell's vocals barely register above a hushed whisper, chiming with the horns and surreptitious percussion to craft a fey lullaby set in fire-stoked homes on European streets. Stephen McRobbie shuffles up to the mic for Night Time Made Us, yet it's one of the few times, the frontman conspicuously absent from much of the frontline. His oft-mawkish lyrics are still intact (“I wanted to steal something from myself”), yet as always they fit the aesthetic The Pastels work so hard to create (and work just as hard to make it look effortless, when such disparate harmony is anything but). The jangly rock of Check My Heart, the hushed melancholy of Summer Rain, the hushed ruminations of After Image; it's all quintessential Pastels, if somewhat underplayed (by their standards).  

The penultimate title track is an instrumental jam that highlights how much local acts like Minimum Chips and Love Of Diagrams are indebted to The Pastels' oft-understated intensity, whilst Come To The Dance fittingly closes out the album, an upbeat moment of twee that shifts and sways into the sunset, that flute once more offering a pastoral coda. Slow Summits is an eloquent, welcome return.