There are times when I think that Teenage Fanclub are one of the best bands to ever do it. Look at their back catalogue. Not a duffer in the bunch. Never a wrong foot taken and Do Not Dare to Dream joins that pantheon happily

There are many artists of Teenage Fanclub’s vintage making vital, thrilling music. Do Not Dare to Dream is neither. Yes, it is comfortable, easy, and pleasant — but to be brutally frank, it is criminally dull

‘Do Not Dare To Dream’ is the audible culmination of a tried and tested Fanclub recipe: richly layered arrangements that interact with a warm embrace, alongside lyricism that manages both timelessness and contemporariness

Teenage Fanclub’s 13th album offers wisdom, warmth, comfort and hope, wrapped in beguilingly gentle and sensitive folk-inflected songs; it's a beautiful and perfectly realized record, if slightly lacking the fire of the band’s earlier work

The latest album from the Scottish band settles into pleasant but predictable folk-rock doldrums

With Do Not Dare to Dream, Teenage Fanclub have made an album of gentle defiance, like a warm cup of tea on a late fall day

The key term here is immediate, as Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley who keep holding the Teenage Fanclub ship have gone for a more layered concept here, instinctively or intentionally, as the listeners have to keep peeling the layers to get to the essence here, and that peeling is quite worth every listener’s time

Teenage Fanclub reveal they still have a knack for fashioning intriguing songcraft from unlikely places on Do Not Dare to Dream, offering a no-thrills but restorative LP warding off the busyness of the modern age

Scottish quintet settle comfortably into late middle-age with sunny harmonies, chiming guitars and a general warm demeanour on 13th album

Despite the no-nonsense title, Don Not Dare To Dream isn’t a bleak record: these warm, intuitive songs just know that glossy perfection isn’t necessarily the shape a happy life takes. It might be good to talk, but as Teenage Fanclub prove at this stage in their career, listening can be just as therapeutic

It's packed with effortless harmonies and melodies that feel as if they've always been there. Print edition only

While this, their 14th album, may not have the blood-rush of 1995's power-pop masterclass Grand Prix, it matches it every step of the way when it comes to hook-laden, harmonic thrills. Print edition only