Blues Matters! (Magazine in the UK)

For those with a memory that goes back to the early days of the West Coast music scene this will be at once familiar and very welcome. They sit in the space between rock & roll and Americana crossing over into country and occasionally straying into bluegrass territory – and then there is their folk music elements. The vocals are never less than ‘interesting’ with no purer voices to be heard than the likes of Becca Frame and Chico Finn. There is a great sense of sympathetic humour while the quality of the musicianship is remarkable. Songs such as Need Not Apply talking about the discrimination against the early Irish settlers to New York or Too Big To Fail touching on the bail out of the bankers add a political element. There is plenty of humour in Sorry – pure country schlock with a whining pedal steel (Mark Spencer) except that the tongue is well in cheek and the pedal steel is actually superb. Animals is a super bit of bluegrass and features some seriously odd lyrics about animalistic habits – a chorus of “Moo Moo Moo Cheep Cheep Cheep” suggests how seriously they take the song. They have been around for around 6 or so years and they’ve developed both as individual musicians and as a band, creating two albums before this effort but they seem to have had the sense of fun in the music from the get go. My first thought about the album was that it was a bit of a piss-take but I have to say that I would love to see them do this stuff live because I suspect that they would have a great deal of fun with it and share that with their audience.