The Driving Test
A Musical Car Ride
Whilst we would love to give every album/EP/single a full indepth review,we are only human and don't have a time turner so we aren't able to give every release the time and attention it deserves.
In the past that would have ment that we either reviewed a release or we didn't, but now we have a third option, a middle way.
The solution here has been a simple one. Rather than review individual artists' CD's at length, we play them one after the other on a long car journey. The simple listening test is: "are they bearable in the car - interesting, enjoyable, not distracting". This may not be how the artists want us to hear their work, but it's how a lot gets listened to for the first time and at least raises awarenes! The rating system is simple and provides a shorthand for reference.:
True North Duo - Time and Materials ****
www.truenorthband.com
A stripped down format of the band with just Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel on guitar and ukulele, this was actually released a few months back but with no PR backing or push. Catching up now, it's a collection of American folksy tunes, both covers and originals, with a strong air of melancholia to songs like the broken relationship heartbreak of 'Sound of Losing You' living in a "house that's grown quiet as a church on a Monday", 'At Your Door' ("Let me stay one more time/In your house that once was mine") and a cover of the old Carter Family hit 'I Know What It Means To Be Lonesome'. There are more upbeat notes with ''Til I Have You' ("I have this road and a light to travel by/Two good legs since I can't have wings to fly/Hoping forty dollars is enough to get me by/'Til I cross that river and I'm home and dry"), Richard Shindell's optimistic 'Next Best Western' and Graham Sharp's parenthood-themed 'Honey On My Tongue'. The banjo accompanied 'Motormouth' is basically Wetzel's answer to Johnny Cash's 'I've Been Everywhere' but the strongest are the storysongs: 'Jessica', about a bar-playing singer in "cowboy boots and a thrift store dress/Tiger tattoo on her chest"; the loneliness, depression and likely suicide of 'No Way To Live'; 'Doris Dean' sung in the voice of a woman named after a wild west trick rider wishing she could have emulated her and "Maybe everything would have turned out differently for me" rather than just a hill of beans; character study 'Still Life Café' staffed by world-weary immigrants with unfulfilled dreams; and 'The Luthier', about a boy and the tree from which (like Wetzel) he built the guitar he plays. It would be a shame if this remained an undiscovered gem. MD
Susan Anders - Now I'm A Kite ***
www.susananders.com/
From Berkeley, California with a background that includes singing telegrams and teaching doo-wop songs to Buddhist monks, this is her fifth solo album and was written while coming to terms with her father's death, hence the themes of change and seeking new directions. Restlessness-themed opener 'Moving Target' has a mix of Sheryl Crow and Stuck In The Middle With You' as she sings she's not the settling kind, while 'More Of That' recalls her father reading to her as a child. Continuing that train of thought, piano ballad 'Last Dance Of The Night' muses on mortality and being "the next ones up at bat", while, on a more optimistic note the bluesy 'Tiny Hopeful Signs ' is about emerging from depression. She's not got the most engaging of vocals but she sells the songs effectively, again going funky blue on the forgiveness-themed 'I Quit Blaming You' while there's jazzy tones to the quasi rap piano riffing 'Mourning 101'. Elsewhere 'She Can Make Anything (Ruth Asawa)' is about the Bay Area sculptor and WWII internment camp survivor and 'That's What You'd Say' images what her father would advise to get through the grief. The stand-out, though, despite the nihilistic lyrics, is 'Shoes' a poignant Brill-Building styled piano ballad about someone preparing to commit suicide and drown themselves. MD
Sun-Pinned Leaves - No One Gets Out Alive ****
sunpinnedleaves.rocks
Sun-Pinned Leaves’ No One Gets Out Alive offers a raw, atmospheric journey through the darker corridors of human vulnerability. Anchored by a stripped-back acoustic framework and haunting vocal delivery, the album crafts a sonic landscape that feels both intimate and desolate. The production leans into sparse arrangements—allowing moments of silence and ambient noise to settle like ash between lyrics—enhancing the emotional weight without veering into melodrama. However, the album occasionally risks monotony; the minimalistic approach, while effective in tone-setting, sometimes lacks dynamic variation across tracks. That said, its cohesion feels intentional—as if the record is less a collection of songs and more a single, unbroken exhale. Lyrically, the band navigates themes of mortality, regret, and fractured identities with poetic restraint. There’s an undercurrent of folk tradition braided with post-rock sensibilities, creating a genre-fluid experience that resists categorisation. No One Gets Out Alive doesn’t offer easy catharsis. It lingers, brooding, with the uncomfortable truths we usually keep buried. It’s not an album you just hear; it’s one you reckon with. AI
Erica Eso - Songs In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand ***
www.stephcameron.com/
Erica Eso’s Songs In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand is a dazzling blend of avant-pop and philosophical introspection—a sonic diary rendered in glitchy synths, polyrhythmic pulses, and melodic fragments that shimmer like sea glass. The album feels intentionally elusive, inviting listeners into a liminal space where memory and perception dance in microtonal intervals. It’s not so much linear storytelling as it is experiential mapping; each track serves as a breadcrumb in a labyrinthine journey of identity and impermanence. Eso’s vocal delivery—simultaneously airy and grounded—threads together themes of bodily autonomy, digital residue, and the quiet ache of disconnection. There's a palpable tension between futurism and nostalgia, like analog dreams refracted through post-humanist philosophy. One moment, the listener is cradled in synth lullabies; the next, jolted by off-kilter rhythmic shifts that feel designed to disrupt complacency. The production is meticulous yet fluid, embracing imperfections and sonic tangents with open arms. Much like grains of sand slipping through fingers, the songs resist containment, rewarding those who lean into their ephemerality. It’s a record that refuses tidy categorization—both cerebral and emotive, intimate and expansive. AI
Watchhouse, - Rituals ***
www.watchhouseband.com
The first in four years by North Carolina duo Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz explores identity, awareness and mistaking patterns for truth. Variously coloured by bluegrass, folksy Americana and hazy country psychedelia, it's a generally laid-back mood coloured in with piano, mandolin, fiddle, 12-string, pedal steel, cello and bouzouki. Mostly singing lead, his is the stronger vocal with its slightly dusty rasp and, on 'All Around You' shades of Paul Simon, Frantz providing complementary harmonies but lacking the character to pull you into the lightly fluttering 'Firelight' where she takes the spotlight. The opening fingerpicking and fiddle 'Shape' and the mandolin trilling bluegrass swayalong closer 'Patterns' are the strongest but while those in-between are listenable enough, they don't leave any sustained lasting impressions, the six-minute Laurel Canyon flavoured 'Sway' feeling much like the 'Endless Highway' of its instrumental playout. MD
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.