It's a chicken and egg thing.
Not Craig and Charlie Reid themselves, but whether the success of Dundee Rep's Sunshine on Leith has made their songs sound more theatrical, or the twins have embraced their inner thespians. Because there is no escaping the fact that Like Comedy, which features a dozen new originals, sounds a bit like an album of show tunes and comes in a sleeve that makes it look like one.
The lyric-writing conceit at the heart of launch single Spinning Around In The Air might be Sondheim-lite, while the title track is the philosophising of an ageing Chekhovian character. There is a fair amount of that sort of middle-aged musing, in fact. Wherever You Roam is the reassurance of a family man, Women and Wine the confessions of a less saintly character of the same vintage. I Think That's What I Believe suggests that the political certainties of yesteryear may also be up for revisionist revival. Ever since Gerry Rafferty remade Letter From America, I've felt that less is often more with the Proclaimers, and there is some over-production by Steve Evans here too (notably on the opener Whatever You've Got, which goes all Quo). The spare celeste and strings on Simple Things is better. Quite camp though.
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