Danny Wilson made two great albums but really could be judged by the amazing songs hidden away on the B-sides of singles. Gary Clark's finest song (and the best band performance) is probably 'Pleasure to Pleasure', and yet another side to this versatile band could be found in Kit Clark's songwriting, which was mostly ignored on the two albums. His song 'Kathleen' is a hilarious attempt at writing a song based on the rules laid down by Sammy Cahn in his "Songwriters Rhyming Manual", 'I Won't Forget' could be a major hit, and  'Growing Emotional' showed his increasing maturity. However, a band with more than one major songwriting talent can be a nightmare for A&R men who always like a band to have a single focal point. The B-sides were all recorded without A&R intervention.

It was no surprise that Danny Wilson split - there was too much inventiveness and soul to contain. Of course, the "Which one's Danny?" question also proved to be a millstone. Kit Clark immediately took the indie route with his 'Lovedung' EP and a succession of projects lead him to his current group, Swiss Family Orbison.

SFO are different. Their guitar and vocal harmony assault is similar to Teenage Fanclub, there are certainly Lennon influences in there, and they sound uncannily like Danny Wilson at times. But Kit's songwriting vision is refreshingly different, he expands on his 'wildcard' role in Danny Wilson and provides twelve songs that don't do what you expect them to. After all, this is a band that have been known to take on the Beatles 'Because' on stage and win - the vocal harmony is widely regarded as on of the fab four's greatest musical achievements. Deacon Blue refugee Dougie Vipond is a recent addition to the lineup and turns in his best recorded performance so far.

There are man highlights on this disk - the first thing that you notice is  how fresh and alive the production sounds, it is very hard to believe that  this is not a major label with a vast budget. After you have listened to the disk a couple of times you notice that there are two songs barely 30 seconds  in length, the frantic "Lesley's Hat" and the beautiful "Welcome to my World".  Of course, by now, you are already singing "The Wall of Pain" and "The luckiest Man in the World" out loud without caring who hears you! These are impossibly catchy songs. The album has a refelctive side in, "I don't know what to say" which has some great harmonica playing and tugs on the hearstrings, and the vulnerable "A Girl I don't know" which has a similar sound to Gary  Clark's best work with some Brian Wilson harmonies thrown in. This track sounds like it could be a completely solo effort from Kit. 

'Suicide' is a classic. It sounds like a Lennon song, with a certain acerbic wit in the lyrics which really do deal with the darkest of all subjects. It changes in character a couple of times, bringing to mind 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' from the White Album (which is really four distinct songs stuck together).

Kit Clark has created an album which you want to play to your friends at full  volume. He's taken the band name from the original name of Danny Wilson (they were also called Spencer Tracy at one point), and that seems like a statement of intent - he is starting again from scratch. Many of these songs have been around for a few years in their rare live shows, but all of them sound fresh and where there are influences there is also originality - a lesson that Oasis could learn.