The Goat Roper Rodeo Band
Album: Hail The Remedy
Label: 101
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.facebook.com/TheGoatRoperRodeoBand

Darlings of the Chester music scene, these three lads (Tom Lee Davies, Jim Paul Davies and Sam William Roberts) live in a tatty old caravan and write and perform a nice line in thoroughly unpretentious, simply-acoustic-backed self-penned material that pays relaxed and affectionate homage to the unassuming country-blues of the days of yore way before they were even born (chiefly 40s thru to 70s, say).

Theirs is a stylishly accomplished take on the idiom, and while they feel no need to dazzle with virtuoso picking they display no lack of chops either on their two modest guitars and double-bass, and this debut offering has captured the essence of their music exactly as you'd hear it live. There's a great harmonic richness to the vocal work, with blending that recalls the classic ensembles (Everlys especially, and even along up to the Beatles, Hollies, CSN), although one of the lead voices is maybe a touch wiry and seems a touch abrasive at times.

The guys have clearly learnt well from their various role models, and they make good use of approved song forms and structures, which are brought to the forefront with the onset of each new track, whether it's late-60s Stones (Devil's In The Detail), Waylon Jennings juke-joint fare (Whiskey Lullaby), carefree skiffle-beat (Come And Go And Easy) or languidly epic Robbie Robertson country (Tokyo Dreams).

The closing World Don't Shine Like You, a masterly slice of underplayed lonesome aching, leaves us in exactly the right frame of mind to be clamouring for more.

David Kidman