Press & Reviews
Reviews for "Disaster for Scotland"
Released May 2004
I’m glad I have this record. Not just because it’s good, but because it solves the mystery of who to
contact and say ‘thanks’ to. The last Northern Alliance album, ‘Hope in Little Things’, came into my
possession from I know not where, and the press release went the way of most pieces of paper I’m given
(put somewhere ‘safe’). I can’t even remember why I liked the record; it just floated by like a breezy
afternoon and seemed the perfect music to watch time pass to. ‘Disaster for Scotland’ is even more so than
the last. The gloriously titled The Patron Saint of Sore Throats threatens to turn into a Neutral Milk Hotel
romp, but just skulks around like that agonising point of the day between breakfast and lunch. Preston Falls
doesn’t do much to fill you up, just drifts by as if it were steam from a coffee cup. Minutes elapse before
Say Hello to the Dolomite Hills ambles through the day, gently chugging along with a jaunty chorus yet still
unwilling to break into a sweat. The Yo La Tengo chugging of Year of the Underdog wafts by and there’s a
hint of Stratford 4 in there on the following Let’s Form a Union. There’s also a touch of their countrymen
Ballboy in the melancholy depths of Ally’s Tartan Army, which turns a football sing-along into a tearjerker.
Checking in at twenty-eight minutes, the record won’t help you bridge the raging stream of a long day, but
it will provide a great snack while you mull over a coffee.
Laurence Arnold, Comes With a Smile, Summer 2004
A band that has never played live, has collectively cut back on fags to get more booze down their necks
is a band to be cherished, particularly when you discover that Northern Alliance sing songs about identity,
homesickness, love, marriage, the future and… football misery. So what with all the irony, emotion and
buckets of sensitivity washing around, what’s it all sound like? Oddly,very Scottish. Who’d a thunk it, but
there is often a plaintive Scots drone to flesh out the Northern Alliance sound, like on the lovely "Patron
Saint Of Sore Throats". On the other hand, there’s hardly a drone, more a shimmer, to bed the clavinet (?)
spangles into on the moody n magnificent "Preston Falls", so are they mucking us about? Don’t know, don’t
care, there’s a lot of bad stuff come from Scotland, Ian St John, synapse-sizzling jumpers and cows that
need a haircut for starters, but the good stuff is very good indeed and we’ll have to include the surf
washed, pure pleasure picking of "The Battle Of Portobello" along with the other six tracks here, the
Bay City Rollers and Oban single malt as very good things to come from Scotland. It is now our ambition
to book these lazy fuckers for a gig.
Unpeeled, June 2004
Hurrah. Just in time for Euro 2004, a timely reminder of where the Scottish backslide really started
which will show why Scots will console themselves with cheering on France and Croatia. Our national football
team has never recovered from the Argentine debacle which coincided with the fall from grace of the Bay City
Rollers (even readers not born then have this passed down in whispered tones, or sense it via some genetic
imprint). The problem with Scottish football? It’s often put down to having ready access to gameboys, the
internet and drugs, perhaps all at once. Anyone else noticed that our international ratings zenith has
coincided with our sudden rise in world rankings music-wise? Northern Alliance’s fantastic album is a
symptom of the problem – when they should have been kicking a ball round the cobbled streets of Leith
they were clearly making lazy, tear-stained songs. ‘Patron Saint of Sore Throats’ lumbers like Steve
Nicol towards an open Uruguayan goal, while ‘Preston Falls’ barely makes it out the tunnel, displaying
a sense of urgency akin to that of Alan Hansen. The dazed and confused ‘Let’s Form a Union’ takes the
mood down a further notch, a sleepwalk through a daydream, like Alan Rough admiring a Cubillas free kick
from afar. By the time they cover ‘Ally’s Tartan Army’ – yes, the Andy Cameron battle cry – sorrows have
been so drowned that the song barely reaches the second verse, never mind the stage. Don’t get me wrong,
Disaster for Scotland is at times a beautiful album but, like its subject matter, don’t expect those
tears to be ones of joy.
Bernhard Bessing, Is This Music?, Summer 2004
Who? Scottish three-piece: Craig Smith (bass, guitar, keys, drum machine), Doug Johnstone (guitar, drums,
vocals, keys) and Viv Strachan (vocals)
Sounds Like? The true Celtic folk sounds and moods that heavily influence Will Oldham with shades of
Ian Curtis in the vocals at times.
Standout Track? ‘Year of the Underdog’
Verdict? A melodramatic set of supposed drink-influenced outpourings on the state of football, love,
death and all the other things that matter when you’re alive today.
Stuart Wright, Rocksound, July 2004 [8/10]
Perhaps ‘celebrating’ the halcyon era of Scottish football, when humiliation was unexpected and
ignominious rather than matter-of-fact; Northern Alliance make suitably downbeat alt.folk of a kind
rather suited to Anstruther’s celebrated Fence label.
In the mid-90s you’d have called it slowcore, a musical genre typified by Codeine and Karate and still
practised by Low. Northern Alliance, remarkably, take the mood down a notch on the beautifully maudlin
‘Preston Falls’, though even this can’t plumb the depths of their funereal version of Andy Cameron’s
shameful ‘Ally’s Tartan Army’ - done as its subject matter demands and hopefully putting our nation’s
failings to rest. Well, until the next game.
Stuart McHugh, The List, 10.6.04 [4/5]
Here's an unfortunately named seven track mini-album of grainy, Sparklehorse-ish melancholic bedsit
pop from this marvellous Scottish trio. Hammond organ swirls like smoke into winter air on 'Say Hello To
The Dolomite Hills', before a gentle, rhythmic cloud of guitars, bass and drums counterpoint the
Edinburgh-sized heartfelt chorus, and you wonder what they put in the water up there. Sometimes the
musical ideas don’t match up to the raw potential of the songs, with 'Year of the Underdog' in particular
sounding like half a good idea in search of a song, but 'Let’s Form A Union' is worth the price of the
album (£5, I believe, from www.fencerecords.com) on its own; it's full of longing and grit.
Nelson Stanley, Logo Magazine, June 2004 [3/5]
A cynic might say that Anstruther-based Fence Records have carved themselves a nice niche market in twee.
But I’m no cynic. The latest release from the ubiquitous collective’s Picket Fence series is a selection
of songs from Edinburgh’s Northern Alliance. These guys made a small but accomplished splash with their
self-released EP, Hope in Little Things. Disaster For Scotland is similarly compact – restrained patterns
of guitar, strings, organ and maybe even a harpsichord weave themselves into agreeable monotone vocals.
Standout track ‘Say Hello to the Dolomite Hills’ builds a simple paean to melancholia, followed by the
equally spartan ‘Year of the Underdog’. Northern Alliance certainly don’t try and do too much here – they
must have listened when their music teacher told them that repetition is the key to composing a good piece
of music. Sound advice, it appears, and there’s something innately Scottish about this record (apart from
the title); it’s in the quiet intensity, coupled with a sense that nothing really matters too much. When
they sing “Let’s form a union”, it sounds less a battle cry than a drunken meandering down the local pub.
Twee? Far from it.
Clare Harris, Big Issue, 27.5.04