Broken Record Prayers opens with 'Jack Nance Hair', a languid soul-infused slice of janglepop given all sorts of edge by being topped and tailed by a spoken monologue which eventually declares "beware our bitten mouths and fingernails... we have torn ideals. Comet Gain has torn ideals". It's a statement of intent for the longstanding Comet Gain, essentially transplanted mods hoping to inspire other semi-revivalists, whose leader David Charlie Feck makes much of his Kevin Rowland-esque search for the new indiepop vision, a belief in music and hope in the face of the indifference of love and dreams, and if that means losing all the members bar the singer, as happened in 1997 (tellingly, this compilation of "A&B sides, new songs, session tracks and stray dogs" starts a year later), or becoming as famous for the shambolic nature of most gigs, something which reached an apogee at Indietracks festival in July when only the bass player turned up, then so be it.Here then are twenty songs, totalling the CD full length of 74 minutes, of heartbreak and personal experience, an experience that gets wearying in one sitting but when at its best is very, very good at what it does. 'You Can Hide Your Love Forever' sounds like prime Postcard Records stock, the fully committed 'If I Had A Soul' recalls Tracy Thorn's Cobain-favoured first band Marine Girls, or possibly early Ash with the fuzz pedals turned down, while recent single 'Love Without Lies' is built on a positively post-punk revival rhythm section and a declamatory Rachel Evans vocal bemoaning "X's for eyes, Polaroid minds". 'Beautiful Despair' is built on controlled anger and all those Peel-feted mid-80s guitar bands with bite who both were and weren't really responsible for C86, while Feck ponders "I thought I could change the world this way, sometimes I remember that I failed every day". They can really rip when the occasion demands, 'He Walked By Night' and 'Orwell Liberty Dance' both resembling fans (and occasional drummer loanees) The Cribs.As befits a band who list their influences as "the Go-Betweens, Godard, Irma Thomas, dance parties, Dexy's Midnight Runners, falling in love, mod and hootenannies", Feck wears his desire to both dance and art, in contravention of the celebrated late 70s slogan, on his sleeve as much as his emotions. His influences too: the ghosts of Orange Juice and the Velvet Underground continually stalk these songs, not to mention possibly unintended others - 'Hard Times' seems to be an attempt to reference at least three different stages of Primal Scream's career on a bedroom budget. There's a working knowledge exhibited of classic garage rock, in the way 'Young Lions' and the self-fulfilling 'Beatnik' are driven by 60s effect organs, and of the great indie lineage - see 'Mainlining Mystery', a fully spoken effort that owes equal amounts to the Velvets' 'The Gift' and the mythology of lost heroes dedicated to Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities, another inscrutable and resolutely independent band who weighed learning and smarts against scrappiness and made it a long running virtue. Right there is Comet Gain's raison d'etre - rawness over cleanliness, a little charm and a lot of scrappy style. 73%Comet Gain on Myspace