King Creosote – From Scotland With Love

Written to soundtrack the archive-compiled documentary of the same name, From Scotland With Love is equally effective in cut-down, re-ordered album form. The strength of KC’s lyrical, narrative-led songwriting is such that, even shorn of their redolent visual accompaniments, the tales told in the likes of Cargill (a fisherman’s wife waiting for her partner to return from sea – Kenny’s first attempt to write from a female perspective and a moving triumph) or Miserable Strangers (an outpouring of heartfelt homesickness from émigrés clinging to dreams of a new life around the corner) are deeply felt.

The latter is the album’s emotional pinnacle, buoyed by Pete Harvey’s majestic string arrangements and a rising choir of backing vocals (used again to stirring effect in Pauper’s Dough). At the pacier end of the spectrum, meanwhile, is Largs – a jazzy toe-tapper that translates the overarching romanticism into punch-drunk childhood nostalgia. Utterly transportive, and truly special.