Modern Studies

★★★★ We Are There FIRE. CD/DL/LP

Fourth studio album from Glasgow quartet.

Emily Scott’s voice is a beautiful thing. It flies like Sandy Denny, but it has the wounded intimacy of Beth Gibbons and the precision of Christine McVie too. It’s the calling card of Modern Studies (named after a subject on the Scottish school curriculum). If Scott desired, she could be a pure folk artist, but she and her three multi-instrumentalists have more vaulting ambitions, so they’re part British folk rock, part Laurel Canyon lushness, part richly layered ambient indie. The closing Winter Springs leads with piano and Scott’s pure vocals, before gently escalating to male voice choir backing, spooky Theremin-style whoops, miscellaneous clattering and strings, all without breaking its funereal pace. Elsewhere, there’s delicacy in the haunting Comfort Me, and Light A Fire gallops along with Moonlight Shadowstyle breeziness, while the instrumental coda to Do You Wanna is a spiralling joy.