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Much was made of this Canadian group's alt.country reference points with the release of their debut album 'How Was Tomorrow', which garnered a clutch of complimentary reviews. This new release from Andrew and Peter Cash takes the group's sound one step further. It's more confident, more in your face. But, the further they travel down the road, this Toronto pair seem to be getting more and more mired in the dense thickets of rock traditionalism. For 'A Brand New Light' isn't that new; it's old-fashioned, solid, reliable, predictable and oh-so dull. There's musicianship, to be sure, and some quite attractive harmonies, but after twenty-minutes of so I wanted to turn the thing off simply because it wasn't taking me anywhere. Perhaps I've been listening to too much Wilco or whatever, but stuff like this is very worthy, very ordinary, really. What I'm trying to say is that you're waiting there for every chord sequence, every twist and turn that will take you down the same familiar alley. The thump of the drums is just so; the guitars rustle in such a way, the harmonies - in their Everly Brothers revisited kinda fashion - merge in a way that makes you go ...'Ahh, I expected that'. And then comes the spiralling guitar solo - whose innovative idea was that? - and Forget The Dust (one of eleven not-so-memorable tracks) has come and gone. This is Classic Country Rock writ large. Is Bryan Adams involved in some way? Certainly it sounds like was. I rest my case.

John Stacey
CWAS #13 - Autumn 2003

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