The Citizens: Songs of Absolution | Album review

From one underrated Irish band to another? Here's hoping not, as The Citizens (whose four members were once in Dublin band Saville, which in 2008 released one of Irish music's most overlooked records, Nostalgia) return to the game with an album of rare quality.

Stylistically, Songs of Absolution draws from similar wells of inspiration and influence: classic pop with soulful flecks spattered here, there and everywhere.

Of the dozen bona fide tunes (Tabernacle is a brief instrumental and Summer – Reprise is a themed coda), there are at least eight that deserve to be played off the radio: Just Say So, It Wasn't All Bad, Great Expectations, This Town Will Be the Death of Me and Song of the Swell are sharp bursts of eloquent pop.

But the doozy here is the poignant Don't Fall in Love with Me, which is so dolefully divine it could make the Terminator cry.