Paul Quinn once enjoyed a business-hours beatkeeping gig with daylight-beamin' Glaswegian melody-worshipers Teenage Fanclub. On his the Primary 5 debut, North Pole, he also aims to created dangerously infectious meadow-pop. Here Quinn, with help from multi-instrumentalist Ryan Currie, among others, lays on more blue-sky lovey-dove on the warm-not-Arctic North Pole. The Primary 5's sound, like the Fannies', is-- to keep it proper and indie-- Big Star, Sloan, the Raspberries. But more accurately, it's practically Gin Blossom-y (albeit through the Clientele's classicist gauze). And that's not just because brilliant opener "Comin' Home" mentions "gin" and "blossoms" before announcing, plaintively but seeping with driblets of molten joy, "I only want you here by my side."

OK, so maybe "honey you make me feel so good you're the girl I've waited for my whole life through you're the one" on finale "Field of Dreams" breaches my Green Bay-hat threshold. Banal lyrics bug me, no foolin'. Similarly, penultimate hymn "Shine On" is too Pure Prairie League for taste. But throughout the rest of , Quinn's songwriting is unpretentiously immaculate, rivaling ageless ingénue Jonathan Richman in the ability to confect near-perfect pop from deceptively facile-seeming bubblegum base and sporkfuls of sugar.