Ha! Those laconic Scottish cowboys of misfit angst and wry humour have made it – once more? – to the point of attempting to impress Joe Public with their square peg in a round hole songs. I’m not sure how long it has actually taken them – time flies when you are on antidepressants – but the wait has definitely been worthwhile.
Not too many bands from Scotland – and very, very few from its rather empty heart - would take the trouble to do the smart thing and make their songs as entertaining as The Lonely Oatcake do. The alt-country musical seasoning thus seems entirely appropriate to their intentions and, with those nobody loves me not even me lyrics as the icing on the cake, “A Portrait of the Oatcake as a Young Man” actually manages to consistently raise a smile. Who could not identify with the inability “to grow a convincing beard” referenced in “No Sympathy”? It’s a check shirt song but not a man bag song if you want to do the retail comparison. “Graduation Blues” is a similarly appealing confection about encroaching conventionality that is laconically – there’s that word again - decorated with violin and deadpan male and female vocals. If you’ve not been there then you daddy was rich.
There you have it. The Lonely Oatcake are, on the surface at least, a downbeat band that are, in fact, uplifting and eminently likeable. As a further bonus, it would appear that this EP is available as a free download from Bandcamp.