Rattlesnakes

Lloyd Cole wrote the debut of a literature graduate who name-checked Norman Mailer and Simone de Beauvoir without flinching, then set it all to guitar-pop clean enough to whistle.

"Perfect Skin" opens the record with a girl who has "cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin," and the whole thing runs on that tension between arch bookishness and a melody you'd hum unthinkingly. The title track builds its verses around a woman reading Simone de Beauvoir in a broken-down car, and Cole delivers the reference deadpan, so it lands as character rather than showing off. The Commotions keep the arrangements bright and jangling, which is what saves the wit from curdling into a lecture. What you're left with is a young man clever enough to be embarrassing and disciplined enough never to be, singing about heartbreak like it's a book he half-finished.