Review: King Creosote – ‘From Scotland With Love’


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Pastoral, reflective and possibly the most charming album of the year, King Creosote returns with his, well it’s anyone’s guess these days – could be his 40th or 400th album – ‘From Scotland With Love‘.

This love letter to Scotland is a collection of simple and beautiful songs, some grander gestures and a smattering of upbeat numbers all about a life lived amongst people who have grown up with common experiences. Like a microcosm of a way of life we now yearn for, not a simpler time, or anything so faux or twee, just a time fondly remembered and missed, but no less hard or more happy.

Offering the listener such wonderful slices of lo-fi indie beauty, it truly stands apart as something special. And it does this by offering something quite distinctive in its bare bones, simple beauty and gentle honesty. Songs like opener ‘Something To Believe In‘ and ‘Miserable Strangers‘ are so fragile and tentative they feel like they could almost disappear before your eyes, while the immense wonder of ‘Pauper’s Dough‘ is simply breathtaking, managing to feel so personal whilst sounding so grand.

But as absurd as it might sound considering the strength and beauty of these songs, this record is actually at its most inventive when it is not being heartbreakingly beautiful. There are so many of those moments that the inventive and playful sections of the album really stand out, and not just because they are necessary, as without them it would be easy to become immune to just how wonderfully the record is. These upbeat and witty interludes are a perfect foil to the story being told, and give the lives being described real humanity.

Largs‘ is a twee vintage shuffle, wonderfully reminiscent of a time that no one really remembers, but somehow all feel they know. British seaside summers in a time that possibly never existed. Caravan holidays; that uniquely unique British holiday offering nothing but warmth and joy through the sheer expectation of disappointment. These scenes are painted with real love and tenderness, but also with wit and passion. The inventive, almost playground style chant of ‘Bluebell, Cockleshell, 123‘ is so charming that you cannot help but be sucked in, and ‘For One Night Only‘ is a lush slice of indie-pop – it is these tonal shifts that really embellish the album, and give it a further dimension that only adds to its appeal.

In all ‘From Scotland With Love’ is a superb celebration of Scotland and the people who have not only loved it, but who have truly made it. Not some single individuals, but the people who quite simply live and die there every day. Without ever feeling the need to falsely romanticise their lives, it paints their lives with true beauty. It does in many ways sidestep the gritty aspects of life, but then that is its intent. So it may not be gritty, but the depiction of its subjects is never anything but sincere.

King Creosote as usual plowing his own furrow, painting pictures of the lives he has crossed with honesty and love. These vignettes of a life and a place are dripping with reality and truth, yet are wonderfully ethereal and warm. Everything feels familiar, places seem worn and real, people are tangible and bursting with life. It is no mean feat to make something sound so vibrant, and so simple, yet time and again King Creosote does just that.

Simplicity, or at least the feeling of simplicity and simpler times define the album without being the whole story. The whole story is the passion with which these simple tales are told, and King Creosote is a wonderful story teller.

(Dylan Llewellyn-Nunes)


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