The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
I Bet You Say That To All The Boys
Fashion Brigade


Recently re-released, the debut from Windy City inhabitants known as The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir is a pleasant piece of twee/chamber pop.

There is no doubt the biggest influence on the band comes from the pre-glossy, a bit too cheesy for their own good days of Belle and Sebastian. Isobel Campbell certainly could be singing the ultra catchy “I Say the Stupidest Things Sometimes,” as well as the breezy “Would You Still Love Me If I Was In A Knife Fight?” And the bouncy pop tales starring a sad, young female (“Jennie That Cries,” and “Ellen’s Telling Me What I Want to Hear,” respectively) are replicates of the old, standard B&S staple, and are both seemingly so carefully crafted from what must be a mold of Stuart Murdoch’s imagination hidden in singer/songwriter Elia Einhorn’s basement that either one would not have been out of place amongst the songs that comprise Tiger Milk or If You’re Feeling Sinister. Not to mention the soft-focus photo portrait album cover or the lengthy song titles (not that Belle and Sebastian weren’t inspired by the Smiths from that end of the spectrum).

Not that any of this is a bad thing, but it could have easily come across as overtly practiced mimicry, a carbon copy of a surely better thing. However, the saving grace from parody or plagiarism on I Bet You Say This to All the Boys is how effortlessly the band blends the influence of '90s tweesters in with the darker, rough around the edges folkie punk like that of Billy Brag or the Pogues. This is especially evident on the raucous Clash City Rocker “Tear Down the Opera House,” the acoustic/harmonica driven “Mother’s Son,” and the opening number, the melancholy “Bet You Never Thought It Would Be Like This.”

Kicking off the album with a church organ and the somber, Camera Obscura-sounding vocals of Choir-girl Ellen O’Hayer’s softly singing “You've cut yourself from existence/ for the sake of tradition/ just to be alone,” the song gradually leads into a miniature orchestra and the subtly angry vocals of “Boston” Kerstein. “Yet you're saved/ by the graves/ of old men whose names play on the juke box,” he growls like a young, slightly intoxicated Shane MacGowan. The songs build-up leads into a sad, closing time Irish pub sing-a-long. It’s an excellent dynamic, the upbeat and the downtrodden, and one that comprises the rest of the record.