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As their name might suggest, Two Fingers Of Firewater are a band to be listened to when you're slightly the worse for wear, staggering back from the bright lights of the city after a night on the tiles.
To say they sound better this way both does them a disservice and describes them honestly. On first (sober) listen, they come across as a slightly more country-influenced Pogues, flirting with dirty folk but in a fairly conventional way. Down the old firewater, give them a second chance and there's something much more in their low-fi country blues.
From the opening bars, based around the 1920s gospel standard (and Uncle Tupelo favourite) Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down, they sound ridiculously American for a band that hails from Guildford. Part Mexican strings, part rough-hewn delta blues, part Flying Burrito Brothers, part the kind of band you imagine Jack White would like to discover and keep in a cage, they are completely, utterly, totally not the sort of band you'd stumble across at Guilfest and yet the same time, they wouldn't be out of place if you did.
A perfect sample of their wares can be experienced from the eighth and ninth tracks alone - I'm Not Sad represents the aural equivalent of the traditional, Stetson-hat-and-plaid-shirt end of country music, while its successor The Beginning is a minimal, white noise soaked, haunting post-rock interlude that makes Smog and Will Oldham sound cheery and tuneful.
It's the juxtapositions that make the album so interesting. First time round, Two Fingers Of Firewater take you by surprise and fool you into thinking they're a bit disjointed and unformed, but like the after-taste kickback of a particularly good whiskey, by the second listen you'll realise that it's this very disjointedness that makes them interesting. They do Led Zep axe solos on The End and channel The Byrds on (the probably not coincidentally titled) The World Can Turn. What more do you want?
With peddle steel guitars, banjos, mandolins and accordions, they've sold their souls on a crossroads a long way away from London's commuter satellite towns, with hammond organ keyboards amid vocals that don't sound anywhere as near incongruous as they should.
The band has already supported Hank Wangford, will be playing Secret Garden in June and Keilfest in August. Outdoors, under the festival sun, they're definitely one to catch.
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