My Two Toms - Who We Were and What We Meant By It

Oh my lord here is what I believe to be the first ever vinyl offering from Bristol's finest banjo and guitar duo who are both called Tom, My Two Toms. I wore out my copy of their last offering 'Field Recordings 1 and 2' , so its a wonderful surprise to be handed a whole batch of new material from the duo. What they produce are simple, charming rustic instrumentals with fantastic interlocking melodies. The Toms always sound like they were born to play together, each bouncing off the others playing so that each piece is filled with wonderful little touches and melodic surprises. The sound takes its influence from old dusty American pluckers but is not overly traditional and has a whole new take on melody, so much so in fact that I've been disturbed twice while writing this review to be questioned as to whether certain tracks are Portishead and Delgados covers! Tracks like 'Ya Ya' and 'Ballad of Karen Glenn' shows the Toms real strengths in melodic, playful wistful yet cheerful compositions that unlike many other recordings of this ilk acts almost like a Prozac for the ears. Additional instrumentation is provided to good effect by Kate Wright and Matt Jones of Bristol heroes Movietone yet this is subtle and unobtrusive lending the album a simple clarity over its 17 (count em) tracks. In addition to all this the artwork is utterly stunning.