Slow Club - aka Charles and Rebecca from Sheffield - claim to be the UK's answer to The White Stripes. They're more the UK's answer to The Handsome Family, and while that might not mean so much to most people, it's certainly no bad thing.
Low-fi, slightly twee without being sugary, their folksy pop is charming and catchy, summery and eminently listenable. Their melodies - especially on opening track Let's Fall Back In Love - could have fallen out of a Christian camping weekend, slightly earnest but utterly trustworthy.
Come On Youth is more pared down. They could be Conor Oberst's long-lost English cousins, both here and on the sublimely fragile Dance To The Morning Light. This is music for the gentlest summer evening, as the sun gently sinks behind the garden fence and you strum a lonely guitar on the veranda.
There's so much of this kind of thing around at the moment it's a genuine surprise to find a band that stands out from the crowd but Slow Club really do. Rebecca's infectious vocals, the fragile guitars ... it's a shame the festival season is nearly over. You'll just have to smile and imagine them at the world's best bandstand instead.
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