The band formed in 2007 and have since played hundreds of shows including Glastonbury Festival 2010 and 2011. They’ve also enjoyed airplay on BBC 6 Music.
The epic guitar avalanche of ‘Due Dues’ and the Buckley-esque ‘In My Way’ play to their strengths, providing further reasons to add this record to your collection. Those violins make another welcome appearance on ‘Some Time Later’, which also has touches of folk and reggae, not things that should usually go together, yet these musicians have a way of making these contrasting styles work well within the core sound they’ve established.
Admittedly a bit of a dip follows, as ‘Taming The Thought Of The Tiger’ snoozes a bit too much to make any kind of an impact, and ‘Scilly Dazed On The Paradise Bus’ goes too far down the funk-jazz route and ends up getting lost, dragging the LP off course in the process. But it’s only a brief blip. Rounding off the album wonderfully, ‘The Big F’ brings forward horns that provide a jazzy embellishment to the gliding ambience and warm vocals.
Frontman Reuben Tyghe said: “I like to think the first record displayed our musical palette, there’s a right old mish mash of stuff on there. This album we’ve tried to pick the right tracks to make a smoother, more direct record. Getting to the point, rather than twiddling off to no-where kind of thing…”
When I asked him what influenced the album’s sound, he replied “Grooves and honesty”.
Listen to their (now very rare) debut ‘Meet Me On The Common’ for an idea of how they’ve since progressed, adding their own touch to their varied influences to create the basis of their newer material. They seem to be on a bit of a roll too: already they’re recording demos for the third LP and are keen to build on their current burst of creativity.
