Mull Historical Society: Us : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Loss, the debut from eccentric Scottish singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre - a.k.a. Mull Historical Society -- became a surprise U.K. sensation last year, thanks largely to the greatest song ever written about Olivia Newton-John, "Watching Xanadu," which threw in Coleridge for good measure. Us is a more confident, more stoutheartedly tuneful and just plain better successor to Loss. In plaintive, largely acoustic pop gems such as "Gravity," "Asylum" and "The Supermarket Strikes Back," MacIntyre gets emotional without losing his sense of humor, evoking Coldplay minus the angst, or Badly Drawn Boy with a sharper ear for melody.

ROB SHEFFIELD
(From RS 919, April 3, 2003)