You wouldn’t want to get stuck next to them at a dinner party, but there’s much to be said for this trio’s downbeat folkie debut. Thematically and lyrically One Mile An Hour sound like they spend a lot of time outdoors staring wistfully off into the distance and wondering about the one that got away, which, implausibly, suits them down to the ground.
Recorded in view of the sea (they’re vague about exactly where, but it was the grey mass off England’s south coast somewhere), it’s an album that references space, openness and, ultimately emptiness.
Hiring John Dent (John Martyn, Nick Drake, PJ Harvey) to master their record shows just where they’re coming from and who they might be tipping their hats to, but their lilting melancholia really is all their own.
The lovely In Return is a haunting refrain of harmonies and regret, but as far from traditional English folk as you could imagine, sounding full and lush and wonderfully polished. The sparse Love You More is chiming reaffirmation built on a circuitous vocal while, clocking in at 10 minutes plus, the long, languid and live Nine Eight roils and rises like The Doors at their most dreamlike.
