Best Of The Milltown Brothers, The

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Best known for the shimmering piece of early-'90s modern pop "Which Way Should I Jump?" (the 1991 single was a Top 40 hit in Britain and a 120 Minutes/alternative radio mainstay stateside), the Milltown Brothers earned a healthy dose of critical applause in their early days. NME tabbed the Lancashire five-piece a band to watch in 1990, while Q gave their debut Slinky the much sought-after five-star seal of approval the following year. Unfortunately (and almost criminally), like so many other picked-to-click bands of the era, the Milltown Brothers were swiftly forgotten by the notoriously fickle British music cognoscenti (and, well, their second album lacked the punch of the first). The Best of takes an interesting tack, acknowledging the one-album wonder of the band by including its entire debut along with assorted later singles, making the record something of an expanded version of 1991's Slinky. While that might seem cheesy to some, or a skirting of some sort of "greatest-hits" rules to others, The Best of the Milltown Brothers is simply a sweet collection of swirling indie pop/rock from one of its best practitioners of the early-'90s. The Milltown Brothers' lead singer Matt Nelson boasts a memorable high-register vocal style which bleeds passion, whether caught up in reverie, defiance, or pain, as his guitar jangles in harmony with sibling Simon's at a level rivaling Inspiral Carpets. "Which Way Should I Jump?" is up there with other pitch-perfect early-'90s singles like Teenage Fanclub's "Star Sign" and the La's "There She Goes" with its perfect blend of power pop and indie rock, an unusually patterned song whose mile-wide hook builds into a nervous breakdown of a bridge. The collection opens (as did their debut) with the two follow-up singles, the more abstract and shoegazing "Apple Green," and the eyes-wide-open melodicism of "Here I Stand." The album breaks the flow of Slinky with a mid-record torrent of singles from the Milltown Brothers' second album, 1995's Valve, highlighted by the mellow-happy take on Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue." ~ Jason Thurston|