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After four years on the cider circuit, Idlewild's youthful exuberance is giving way to existential angst. The songs on their third, "grown-up" album are musically anthemic but lyrically introspective. That was a killer combination for the Smiths and REM - indeed, Morrissey looms large on the Smiths-esque recent hit You Held the World in Your Arms, along with Murmur-era Stipe on the wistful I Never Wanted.
However, you can almost hear the young Edinburgh band straining to transcend their limitations: on the epic In Remote Part/ Scottish Fiction, 82-year-old Glasgow poet laureate Edwin Morgan even crops up to add some literary wallop.
The album's gem is American English, a shrewd, hummable song about the emptiness of the American dream. It will be ironic, if unsurprising, if the tune finds enormous favour with today's post-September 11 disillusioned Americans.
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