The Primary 5 - Reviews

Given that The Primary 5 are the band of ex-Teenage Fanclub drummer Paul Quinn, it's not surprising to find they're in a decent amount of hock to The Byrds. Go! or Pure Pop For Now People to give the record it's full, swingin' title is a cheerful number, and one which revisits the sound of the Fannies and BMX Bandits with a fair degree of success. The great opener 'Off Course', in particular, could have been lifted from the former band's Grand Prix album, although all of the following continues in a similarly pleasant vein. Which means it's possibly a little saccharine for more cutting-edge tastes, but West Coast (of Scotland) cowboys will love it.

3/5 David Pollock
The List

To suggest The Primary 5 come on like vintage era Teenage Fanclub is an understatement. Then again, Paul Quinn used to be their (third) drummer, following a lengthy tenure as The Soup Dragons sticksman. Quinn and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Currie make up Bellshill's latest harmony coated jangle-tastic export and with this follow up to 2004' North Star debut, they turn in a breathless set of shimmering, west coast guitar sounds, tempered by a small-town world-weariness worthy of latter – day Shack. Engineered by Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub, this is cosily classic, if understatedly familiar fare, and provides much needed sunshine.

 Neil Cooper 3/ 5
Glasgow Herald - Saturday Supplement

Secondary school was a drag. Exams crushed the joy of learning, detention became a daily chore and pretty girls were wooed by the violent tendencies of kappa wearing delinquents. Elementary school just seemed so much better, and in the sound of The Primary 5's Go, you can finally revisit those simple days of carefree wonderment. A luminous cocktail of mouthwatering harmonies, the Glasgow quartet's sophomore record tantalises with breezy arrangements that yearn for the blue skies of summer. Doused in gushing pop hooks, tracks like 2 A.M and Reach For The Light nudge gorgeously into the sunset dreaminess of The Shins and The Byrds. But rather than feyly simulating these all-jingling American beach sensations, this album retains a distinctly Scottish glow in Window Shopping's shimmering down-tempo strings. Much like a straight 'A' student destined for greatness, The Primary 5's Go is in a class of its own.

Billy Hamilton 4/5
The Skinny

A friend of mine once stated that "[movie] directors need to stop having visions," an argument that is probably best applied to music at this cultural juncture. That is to say, bands ought to curb their ambition every now and then: work on songwriting first—your Born to Run will come eventually. When bands like the Arcade Fire throw all their earnestness into some arbitrarily conceived idea of a musical epic and the press takes them at their word, the result is a cancer upon rock music. Like moths to the porch light, bands clamor for the glory of the Big Gesture, but their wings melt in the glare of Neon Bible and we're left with so much forgettable yelpy detritus, a wasteland of albums grand in design and ho-hum in execution. This prognosis is not a given. Plenty of musicians ply their craft diligently and competently without any pretense to headlining Coachella or earning Pitchfork's "Best New Music" honor, but you'd be hard-pressed to explain this to the aspiring Clap Your Hands Say Yeahs and Wolf Parades of indiedom. Hyped today, gone tomorrow. That's why it's such a colossal relief to encounter an album like the Primary 5's Go!. You don't feel like you're being charmed, proselytized or aggressively challenged; it's just Glaswegian songwriter Paul Quinn and his partner Ryan Currie effortlessly turning out beautiful power pop, modest in design and sublime in execution. And better still, you'll probably never have to sit through some long-winded manifesto proclaiming the salvation of rock music in the band's name. Go! hits like a tardy paycheck—just when you'd almost forgotten about it, there it is, and your life is so much the better for it. The idiomatic staples of power pop are all there: jangly guitars, tight vocal harmonies, crisp production—yeah, yeah, yeah, what else is new? But on the third or fourth spin you suddenly realize you're on the third or fourth spin and the no-brainer guitar hook from "Lost in Space" has fixed itself to your consciousness, doggedly imposing hummable cheer on your otherwise dreary existence. Quinn has an uncanny knack for playing interwoven vocal and guitar melodies against subtle rhythmic flourishes, a talent he likely honed as the drummer of Teenage Fanclub, one of those great bands whose devotees will corner you at a party, more than a little buzzed on High Life, and spit in your face while ranting endlessly about why the Fannies' Bandwagonesque was the best album of 1991, Nevermind
College Hill Independent Review - Providence, Rhode Island

Their place in the canon notwithstanding, Teenage Fanclub wrote some of the sweetest, most infectious rock music of the last 20 years, a monument to the collective genius of the group's three powerhouse singer/songwriters—Norman Blake, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley. What a pleasant surprise, then, to hear Quinn step out from behind his kit and lay down gorgeous vocals on par with some of his former bandmates' best work. Go! picks up where the first Primary 5 album, 2004's brilliant North Pole , left off, much as that album carried the torch left behind by the Fannies' latter-day material. Opener "Off Course" chugs relentlessly from the starting line, drums doubling and halving the meter while guitar and vocal hooks pile up to Yellow Pills and Teenline heaven. The jaunty, Byrdsian "Sunsets" paints its titular image in soothing four-one cadences. The lead lick on "Window Shopping" calls to mind some hapless knave shrugging his shoulders while a thought bubble above his head reads "Gee whiz." All warm, cozy stuff; easy on the ears. True, Quinn's lyrics sometimes verge on dopiness, but they're couched in such pretty melodies you're willing, even eager, to forgive him. Go! is genre exercise, but given the narrow stylistic bounds of power pop, that's to be expected. Even the related genres from which power pop borrows—folk and country rock—are relatively prescriptive. In view of these constraints, it could be argued that a gripping power pop album like the one in question is a much greater accomplishment than some hit-and-miss grasp at the avant-pop heights of Talking Heads, for example. Paul Quinn is the consummate anti-visionary musician, and Go! an aggressively pleasant, anti-visionary album in which no song overstays its welcome or overstates its purpose. The New Yorker isn't pissing its pants trying to mythologize the Primary 5 because the band favors breathy harmony over yelping and structural unity over anthemic sprawl. It's a shame such virtues go unrewarded.

Kevin Sparks
Scotland on Sunday

A sparkling, sun-drenched blast of melodic guitar pop, Go is a perfect follow-up to drummer turned bandleader Paul Quinn and his band the Primary 5's 2004 debut, North Pole. Featuring more of Quinn's heartfelt, positive, and catchy '60s-influenced rock, the album also showcases the multi-instrumental talents of Quinn's creative partner in crime, Ryan Currie. Together, Quinn and Currie have crafted a superb album equal to its predecessor in every way — and perhaps even a little better. Having proven himself a talented songwriter on North Pole, Quinn seems to have relaxed a bit into his abilities, and the songs here are assured, effortless, and utterly engaging. To these ends, tracks like the romantic and driving "2 A.M." and the pastoral "Sunsets" are perfect pop tunes that sound something along the lines of Jackson Browne fronting Buffalo Springfield. Similarly appealing, tracks like the melancholy "Out in the Cold" and blissfully expansive "Make Believe" evince a late-'80s/early-'90s shoegazer aesthetic that fans of Quinn's former employers, Teenage Fanclub, will surely appreciate. Go's vintage West Coast vibe channeled through the prism of Quinn's Scottish Glaswegian background makes for a unique pop perspective and one great listen.

Matt Collar
All Music Guide