Homesick and Happy to Be Here

Album Review

Release a couple of EPs, split up, and re-form seven years later to record your debut album — it isn't usual practice, but that's exactly what Aberdeen did. In the face of their circumstances, or because of them, Homesick and Happy to Be Here is a roomy, positively beaming sort of record of diamond-sharp mid-tempo indie pop, a uniquely delayed first attempt that runs somewhere between Jeepster earnestness and the flagrant sparkle of the Trash Can Sinatras' Cake. "In My Sleep" and "Thousand Steps" are easy to write off as boringly ineffectual, but there's a wealth of charm here, particularly in "Cities and Buses," a choir-backed whisper behind the bushes, and "Handsome Drink," which floats by with golden acoustic guitars, shimmering doorbell keyboards, and an understated but hardly twee male/female vocal exchange. Maybe overdue, but shockingly worth the wait.