The Weather Prophets were Pete Astor’s second attempt to find success after the collapse of The Loft, and this slice of jangle pop was their debut single in 1986.

As much as I’m drawn to the airy melodicism of jangle pop as a genre, sometimes I find the songs can be winsome and fey.

That’s how I feel about The Weather Prophets’ first single, Almost Prayed. Even the title is tentative, suggesting a lack of confidence that’s reflected in the easy charm of the music.

And yet… its insistent jangle hints at the gentler moments of the Velvets, as well as the country-tinged 12-stringery of the Byrds or Big Star. 

The Weather Prophets were the band Pete Astor put together after The Loft broke up in 1986, imploding just as success seemed to be beckoning.

He was joined by Loft drummer Dave Morgan and – for a short while – Alan McGee on bass, before the Creation boss stepped away to manage them.

The lineup was completed by bassist Dave Greenwood Goulding and Oisin Little on rhythm guitar and they showed their American influences by hiring Lenny Kaye, the Sixties rock archivist who compiled Nuggets (before joining Patti Smith), to produce the next single, Naked As The Day You Were Born.

Unfortunately their first album, Mayflower, flopped and the band was dropped by its label, a subsidiary of Warners, before McGee signed them to his own Creation Records for a second album, Judges, Juries & Horsemen.

But neither his heart nor his wallet was really in the band’s future, and with jangly guitar groups being swept away by the imminent approach of dance music, Astor broke up the band and went solo, while Goulding and Morgan joined the Rockingbirds.