Album: Turin Brakes

JackInABox, SOURCE

Unlike 2003's Ether Song, which was recorded in a posh LA studio with a hot producer, for JackInABox Turin Brakes opted to kit out their own South London studio and do everything themselves, working at their own pace and trusting to their own judgment. The result is a more intimate, relaxed album, one which doesn't try quite as hard to impress, but which nonetheless inveigles its way more firmly into your affections. There are remnants of the duo's original folkie leanings in the delicate chamber-folk of "Forever", with their acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies underpinned by subtle organ textures; but for most of the album they've settled on a style which tempers those folkie impulses with slinky, blue-eyed funk rhythms laced with tasty soul guitar licks straight out of Memphis or Muscle Shoals. On "Come And Go", the laid-back manner and fluid guitar stylings recall JJ Cale, while elsewhere the emollient refrain and charming harmonies of "They Can't Buy the Sunshine" bring to mind the hip 1970s AOR

Unlike 2003's Ether Song, which was recorded in a posh LA studio with a hot producer, for JackInABox Turin Brakes opted to kit out their own South London studio and do everything themselves, working at their own pace and trusting to their own judgment. The result is a more intimate, relaxed album, one which doesn't try quite as hard to impress, but which nonetheless inveigles its way more firmly into your affections. There are remnants of the duo's original folkie leanings in the delicate chamber-folk of "Forever", with their acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies underpinned by subtle organ textures; but for most of the album they've settled on a style which tempers those folkie impulses with slinky, blue-eyed funk rhythms laced with tasty soul guitar licks straight out of Memphis or Muscle Shoals. On "Come And Go", the laid-back manner and fluid guitar stylings recall JJ Cale, while elsewhere the emollient refrain and charming harmonies of "They Can't Buy the Sunshine" bring to mind the hip 1970s AOR of Bread or The Bellamy Brothers. "Red Moon" is more like the Fleetwood Mac of "The Chain" being fronted by Thom Yorke. It's indicative of the positive tenor of an album in which there's no need to hurry, and no cause for concern.