Fresh from his appearance on the indie stompathon that is Brakes' All Night Disco Party, Marc Beatty crops up again here with his band The Tenderfoot. If the Brakes are the soundtrack to a night out your head will regret in the morning, then The Tenderfoot are the perfect foil.
This is dreamy stuff, as fluffy as a marshmallow cloud and wonderfully gentle. Quite how to define them is a different matter: It's definitely got one foot in the alt-country camp and certainly owes something to the likes of Arab Strap and even the Super Furries in their more introspective moments, and yet those comparisons still don't quite fit. It's not just their sound that is hard to describe - they appear to be almost bi-polar when it comes to the feel of their songs.
The Tenderfoot are more than capable of changing the mood of a song quickly without it sounding trite or contrived. Cowbell Blues switches from slow paced melancholia to an almost jaunty chorus and back again seamlessly. Even their mood swings are hard to judge, and it just makes them all the more loveable.
more 