There’s a point during this interview when Andy Yorke says, “... when I realised I was capable of writing songs ...” when you realise quite what an issue it is for him. He sounds surprised about the fact even now when the band he’s part of has recorded an accomplished first album, had a single in the top 40 and are filling venues around the whole country. However, I guess this is the man who, when offered a record contract, moved to Russia.

He did move back though and he did get back together with his old bandmates to form Unbelievable Truth. And now he’s sitting here in a dressing room with drummer Nigel Powell and bassist Jason Moulster talking to Tim Down and I without meeting our eyes very much and looking fairly knackered. They all apologise for being a bit under the weather and they claim to not cope with touring very well.

Although there is still not much sign of an ego in the room, it would appear there is a little more confidence.

“It made us a bit more mature about it when we came back to it,” says Nigel, “The added confidence meant that we were really secure with what we were doing and what it should sound like so there was never a danger of a record company going ‘well it’s good but it needs a dance beat on it so it sits happier on radio’.”

There is a definite sound to Unbelievable Truth but it’s one that is neither obviously retro nor consciously progressive.

“Yeah, that’s a bit of a weird one because we spend a lot of our time slagging off that kind of thing, you know Ocean Colour Scene and that, but there again we have, at least once, been lumped in with the same camp. I mean when people talk about us they talk in the sense that we’re a real songs band, which sounds a bit like Ocean Colour Scene in a way, like we’re luddites or something. I don’t know. I hate to think we’re part of that sort of thing,” says Andy.

“I just feel that we’re weirder than that. I think these people have a very overwhelming respect for the past and in a way they are trying to recreate ... it’s almost like being a covers band except they’re playing their own songs,” adds Nigel.

It is difficult to describe what Unbelievable Truth do. They don’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary yet they create a subtle beauty and exert an emotional pull that’s beguiling. They use quite conventional forms to create something that has very much its own identity and sound.

“If you’re influenced by someone creative whose done something new then it’s almost an insult to that person to then try and copy them because if you’re influenced by somebody creative then you want to be creative yourself.”

Although they are called Unbelievable Truth they are in no way pompous or overblown. In fact they create songs that operate on a personal, emotional level. “There’s no big message or anything that we want people to get because I don’t have any messages,” says Andy, “Unbelievable Truth is quite misleading as a name because it does imply that we are on some kind of mission from God or something. The songs are more attempts to just kind of explain something yourself really rather than preaching.”

On their soon to be released debut album, ‘Almost Here’, they have created a set of songs that are reflective and thoughtful. Sweet melodies are arranged into cathartic, emotional songs as they move between melancholic and uplifting moods.

“I don’t think melancholic and uplifting are in any way mutually exclusive because working between pain and try to elevate yourself by seeing the dark side of things gives you strength and enriches your life. The emotions in our songs I see in a very similar kind of way to how I feel about where we are musically.

“I think some of the reviews that we’ve had which haven’t been great, it confuses me that people are so used to bands wanting absolutely everybody to like them that they can’t accept the fact that frankly there’s a time for listening to us and there’s a time and, probably, a type of person who won’t want to and that’s fine. I think it’s great that we exist and Goldie exist and Symposioum exist and Ultrasound exist. I mean you could go and see all of them and have a great gig going week. The fact that our music is melancholic and uplifting doesn’t mean that our whole lives are melancholic. There’s happiness as well”.

In the end Unbelievable Truth provide the antidote to the all encompassing arrogance of bands like Embrace. Where Embrace claim every song as a classic and pump every tune into an overblown epic the Unbelievable Truth concentrate on details and create songs of believable worth. Their album has just eleven songs and is only forty three minutes long. It is an album that suggets there is much more to come. It does not attempt to encapsulate pop but just to create something new and different. It sounds like the start of something rather than the be all and end all and is very much better for it.

Whether this will be successful in an industry that has started to reject the whole concept of a band being able to develop through a succesion of albums is debatable. However, Unbelieveable Truth seem to have enough confidence in what they’re doing to create music slightly beyond the bounderies of the insular indie world of most of their contempories.

Unbelievable Truth were talking to Ben, in January 1998.