Stephen McLaren - We Used to Go Raving

  by John Clarkson

published: 31 / 10 / 2017

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Review

Occasionally an album comes along that captures an exact place and moment in time. Stephen McLaren’s ‘We Used to Go Raving’ does that, encapsulating perfectly what it is like to be Scottish, male, mid-30’s, in the second decade of the 21st Century and, having spent a wild youth, although not feeling that one has misspent it, wondering where one should go next in life. McLaren, who is originally from the West Coast of Scotland but has been based for many years in Edinburgh, was the former front man and pianist in indie trio Collar Up, whose 2013 second album ‘Ghosts’ won much critical acclaim. ‘We Used to Go Raving’, which is McLaren’s debut album under his own name, is again largely piano-led, but also throws in touches of keyboards and percussion and at one point a cello. The title and opening track is on the surface an upbeat pop number with a cascading tune. Its lyrics are, however, more melancholic, telling of a youthful friendship gone sour and of someone that was once close but who McLaren no longer sees. “We used to go raving my brother and I/Back before we lost each other in a foggy sky,” he sings, his voice tinged with reverb, as an opening line, setting up a lot of what is to follow on the rest of the album. ‘No More (Say Yes)’, like the title song, was a recent download single. Written in the wake of the Scottish Independence vote by McLaren, a passionate ‘Yes’ supporter, it is with its crescendoing harmonies and shimmering keyboards another euphoric tune, but in light of how the result for it turned out lyrically a reflection on wasted opportunities and chances. ‘Immigrants’ is also a political number, weighing up Brexit and in particular its coverage by and the hard line racism of the right wing press. “It’s the immigrants taking our jobs,” sings McLaren, reiterating one especially nasty editorial. For all its bleakness ‘We Used to Go Raving’ is, however, often explosively funny. ‘Chest Pains Lullaby’ – which features a meandering cello solo - is an Adrian Moffat/Arab Strap monologue in which an angsty McLaren rants about everything from getting older, to whether he should have kids or not, to the low attention span of both himself and other people. ‘Yet Again, I Have Offended Everyone’, all chiming keyboards and percussion and at just over two minutes the shortest track on the album, meanwhile finds a hungover McLaren with increasing despondency trying to piece together the disastrous events of the night before. ‘We Used to Go Raving’ was recorded at home with McLaren contributing all the instrumentation other than the cello which was provided by a friend, Corinna Patterson. It is an album of conscious contrasts, its polished production combining with its confessional lyrics in which McLaren, who is 34, both tries to come to terms with the past and to make sense of the present. At one level vituperative, at another self-deprecatingly comical, it is an album of refreshing honesty.

Track Listing:-

1 We Used to Go Raving
2 I Sing to You
3 Patience
4 Chest Pains Lullaby
5 Immigrants
6 You Look Older When You Slouch
7 Yet Again, I Have Offended Everyone
8 Tour De Flats, Forever
9 No More (Say Yes)
10 When I Need Someone to Hate, I Close My Eyes and Think of You

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/stephenmclare
https://twitter.com/mclarenallday
https://www.facebook.com/errantmediamu
https://twitter.com/errantmedia
https://errantmedia.bandcamp.com/