Originally released in 2004, Weightlifting is an important part of TCS much cherished catalogue. First time on vinyl – transparent blue.

“You’d be forgiven for not remembering the last time the Trashcan Sinatras made an album. It has, after all, been eight years – and much has happened since. Such as, for instance, the phonecall the Ayrshire quintet received to tell them that, finally, they were set to have a hit after Radio 1 had playlisted their lilting reinvention of Lulu’s ‘To Sir with Love’. The following day, they were told that their record company had gone under. Laugh? They must have been killing themselves when their failure to secure another deal plunged them into bankruptcy.

The sad fact was that, in 1996, you couldn’t get arrested peddling verdant Caledonian jangle-pop that glistened with autumnal sadness. So their old label boss started a new record company and signed Travis – practitioners of verdant Caledonian jangle-pop that glistened with autumnal sadness. You see, in 1999, people couldn’t get enough of that stuff.

Adversity has always suited Frank Reader’s plaintive sigh, so perhaps it’s no surprise that, on this fourth album, keening laments such as ‘Leave Me Alone’ and the title track are among their best yet. Even if you didn’t know the circumstances that inform the latter song – three years avoiding shaven apes at the door – lines such as ‘It’s been a long, lonely winter hibernating away’ scratch at your defences.

What really slays you about Weightlifting is the almost foolhardy optimism. ‘In the summer of our heart,’ sings Reader on ‘Country Air’, ‘there’s a place beyond the river’ – and for a moment, you wonder whether sheer yearning ever killed a man.

We’ve done precious little to deserve a work so achingly pretty; its creators have done even less to deserve our apathy. Thankfully, it’s not too late for us all to get together.”

Pete Paphides, 2004