It’s not a circular. That much is obvious. What The Rainbow Family’s debut album is, though, is altogether tougher to call.

Not to be confused with The Rainbow Family of Living Light, a happy-clappy bonding of individuals who share a common goal of trying to achieve peace and love, The Rainbow Family, in fact, are Scottish duo Barry Christie and Marco Rea. Edinburgh-raised Christie is an industry veteran who has collaborated with Mylo. Glasgow-bred Rea, meanwhile is similarly experienced – having played in bands with a strong sense of harmony such as Appleby, The Marbles, and Palomino.

On that front, This Is Not A Circular is not so much a musical u-turn for Rea as it is for Christie. The duo formed, though, after they discovered a joint love of, in no particular order, ‘50s exotica, The Beach Boys, Les Baxter, Lemon Jelly, DJ Shadow and the Beta Band. Although other bands spring to mind when listening to the album.

‘I Can See A Rainbow’ sounds like what disappointingly-flash-in-the-pan The All Seeing I would if they ever got round to releasing another record. Elsewhere ‘Barbara Bach’ is a mash up of The Who’s cover of ‘Barbara Ann’ and The Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’. And ‘String Thing’ out-camps even The Scissor Sisters.

“There’s no point in pretending we’re dark and moody”, Christie has gone on record as saying. “We want to play around with interesting melodies and create something to make people happy”, he continues. Maybe they are The Rainbow Family of Living Light after all.

(4/5)