U.S. Highball - No Thievery, Just Cool

No Thievery, Just Cool is the fourth album in as many years from Glaswegian jangle-pop outfit U.S. Highball, comprised of lifelong friends Calvin Halliday and James Hindle. This time around, the boys decided to put the neighbourhood to work, enlisting a host of friends and external collaborators to beef up their characteristically propulsive pop nuggets. Jacob Ewald--frontman of recent tourmates Slaughter Beach, Dog--duets with James on a soaring version of The Mr. T Experience’s "Big, Strange, Beautiful Hammer," and Manda Rin--one third of Glasgow indie legends Bis--lends her trademark emphatic yelp to the effervescent "Tiny Partick." On album closer "Out of Time," Aussie stalwarts Darren Hanlon and Shelley Short provide sun-soaked harmonies that elevate the song’s ruminative coda to something transcendent, while Joe Howe--typically known to traffic in jittery electronics--unleashes a rousing saxophone solo slap-bang in the middle of "Paris 2019." The record was masterfully mixed