(((O))) : The Xcerts – There Is Only You

These days, a lot of bands don’t get to make a second album, let alone a third, so the fact that There Is Only You exists at all is somewhat of a relief. The Xcerts only took so long to bring it to fruition because they kept getting invited out on tours with the likes of Brand New and Manchester Orchestra. (Even as I write this, they’ve had to reschedule their own headline tour in order to accompany fellow Scots Twin Atlantic across Europe.) There were no reports of interpersonal friction, no band members leaving due to ‘musical differences’ – if anything, the trio are closer together than ever before.Murray Macleod, Jordan Smith and Tom Heron have been making waves; there’s no doubt about that. The surprising thing about There Is Only You is how forcefully it brings the band’s immediate side into focus. Following on from the dark and difficult Scatterbrain, the band are switching gears and making the biggest, most hook-filled songs they can, and the result is an album that is gargantuan in sound and executed with the sort of gung-ho attitude you’d expect from a band that return after 4 years with something to prove.

It both is and isn’t a break-up record: written and recorded against the larger backdrop of Macleod’s relationship with a significant other disintegrating, he got home from making it to discover that she was leaving him. It’s as much about them as it is a deeply personal album about his own struggles. After ‘2.12.12’ opens the record with gentle guitar, glockenspiel and strings (the latter of which come back in a big way at the album’s most crucial points), ‘Live Like This’ takes things up several notches, pairing up with lead single ‘Shaking in the Water’ to introduce the album’s main themes – the former deals with Macleod’s anxiety issues, while the latter acts as a microcosm of the record as a whole; bruised and battered (‘Change, change yourself, nobody else is left to blame / Shame, shame on you for letting your past lead you astray’), yet triumphant, it highlights a more positive side to the band.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, of course: standout track ‘Kick It’ is a visceral portrayal of a relationship in the early stages of breakdown, with a chorus to match (‘I only wanted your love / Instead, all I got was crushed’), while the fragile ‘Kevin Costner’ slows things down after the energy and urgency of the previous 4 tracks, a strings-assisted, heartbreaking ballad in the vein of ‘Aberdeen 1987’  that brings the record to its first climax. There’s a natural ebb and flow to the sequencing, with the album taking its foot off the pedal before flooring it for a run of colossal songs that undeniably establish the band’s pop credentials. On a record where basically every track would work as a single, ‘Teenage Lust’, ‘Pop Song’ (the actual second single) and ‘Kids on Drugs’ perfectly pull off being passionate, powerful and catchy as hell.

The Xcerts have always been fond of emotional, purposeful songwriting, but they’ve never sounded quite as sure of themselves as they do on an album that is surely set to bring them to a wider audience. The band have chosen to redefine themselves, taking elements of their first two records and throwing them in with things that are daring and new. “We’ll all burn out until there’s nothing left at all” Macleod sang on ‘Nightschool’ (from their debut In the Cold Wind We Smile), but he and his band don’t show any signs of slowing down. They go all out on the title track, building from brittle piano and voice to a thunderous finale that ensures There Is Only You goes out with a goosebump-inducing bang. Confident and with tremendous replay value, the band’s third album could come to define them – this is their moment.