Although Shirley Lee, whom journalistic convention suggests I point out is male, is promoting this as his first solo album. But to all intents and purposes given the rest of the band play on it, this is actually a new album by Spearmint in all but name. It's given the solo tag apparently due to its more personal nature. Although they've been around for more than a decade you're likely to best know Spearmint for 'Sweeping The Nation' and 'A Trip Into Space', two glorious northern soul-flavored indie mini-epic singles from 1997-98 that made daytime Radio 1 and music press headway. Since then they've oscillated around a theme of intelligent while still jangly, melodic low-key pop. A formula that's not greatly changed here.There's been an air overshadowing their last couple of albums that the band have struggled with consistency throughout an album, or at least finding a way not to get stuck in a rut, after their flying start, and this album unfortunately suffers from it more than most. Plenty of Spearmint key points show up, most of the lyrics equally daydreaming about modern love and dissecting the way heartbreak works, referencing other bands - "she loves Maximo, Seu Jorge and Sondre Lerche" - and fitting the indie-soul rhythmic suggestions in, but behind it all the basic problem is the ratio of hook-laden memorable alterna-anthems to songs that drift by without making any impression is too far weighed towards the latter, almost as if Lee didn't totally have faith in the tunes fitting the love song theme.That said, with someone with Lee and co's ease of touch it's by no means a write-off. 'The Smack Of Pavement In Your Face' may be a fairly straightforward acoustic-led pop song but its invocation of the first flush of love is winningly undeniable, as it is in 'The First Time You Saw Snow' which hides no greater meaning behind the joy of playing in snow where it rarely lands, while highlight 'Dissolving Time' takes Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit, gives it a Red Bull injection and subjects it to croaking synths and a soulful fuzz bassline. 'The Reservoir' is a touchingly personal shakily home recorded tribute to Lee's late father which Lee finishes by speculating that if he came back "most of all I'd like to see/Your impression of Jacques Tati" before an answerphone message of his father reporting hearing a Spearmint song in a DIY store.Such ability to apply a light, highly approachable touch to thoughts and affairs of the heart that lesser talents wore down into hackdom long ago just makes the fact that much of the album passes by almost without notice more disenchanting. 57%Shirley Lee on Myspace