(Sunday Best/Shock)

Teenage London siblings – but not what you’d expect!

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis Durham are North London teens, but instead of specialising in pouty teen punk gleaned from downloading Dad’s Clash records on their iPods, they are in fact kids in thrall to the rock, R&B and folk music of the 1950s (and earlier), right down to eschewing any and all digital technology in favour of vintage equipment, inspired by Sun, Chess and Joe Meek. Their debut album is a quite wonderful half hour of American blues, Hawaiian, rockabilly and country standards, with a couple of very authentic originals thrown in for good measure. The gum chewin’ rock & roll of Mean Sun Of A Gun sidles alongside the Appalachian hoedown of Hillbilly Music, along with the steel guitar twang of Swinging Hawaii and the summer drive singalong Going Up The Country. They’ve got the feel just right to the point that this genuinely sounds like a long-lost collection of early rock and blues gems. The three teens swap instruments (banjos, double bass, guitar, drums, harmonica, ukulele, piano etc) and sing the living shit out of these songs, creating a lively, life-loving debut that takes you back to a time when rock was raw, innocent and cool as a cucumber. An absolute gem of an album.

****½

MATT THROWER

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