Any of you out there who log on regularly will already know that we rate REDLANDS PALOMINO COMPANY as one of the leading lights of the resurgent UK roots-rock scene and their uniformly fine second album 'Take Me Home' remains one of 2007's most consistently impressive records.
Taken from it, 'She Is Yours' has all the hallmarks of what makes RPC great: Hannah Elton-Wall's yearningly pure and divine vocals, a rockingly insistent backbeat, shards of burnished pedal steel from the band's secret weapon David Rothon (an English Sneeky Pete Kleinow, if ever there was) and - just to add the cherry on the cake - additional backing vocals from the one and only Gina Villalobos. If this is beginning to sound like a recipe for magnificent, homegrown roots-rock at the very top of its' game, well that's probably because that's just what 'She Is Yours' represents.
On it's own, 'She Is Yours' is more than worth the price of admission, but the excellent news is that the remainder of this EP is made up of new material culled from RPC'S downhome sessions in a barn somewhere in the isolated'n'wild beauty of mid-Wales. The kind of place where postcodes and signposts become irrelevant, the setting was clearly perfect in creative terms because these three tunes showcase RPC'S more traditional, acoustic and country-soaked side and while the instrumentation and feel is lighter, Hannah's deeply personal vignettes carry equally heavy emotional baggage.
'Sleep Song' is the first and it's excellent, with banjo, softly-struck acoustic guitars and John Hymas's delightful fiddle colouring the spaces around Hannah's close-miked vocal. It's lovelorn and delicious, as is the closing 'Penny In A Goldmine': a crestfallen tale of mistrust and potholes fallen into on love's highway where Hannah admits "at night I'm like a rabbit in the headlights/ I don't know wrong from right...neither do you" with a discernible shiver in her voice. Sandwiched in between is the considerably more romantic 'Postcards' which is a little jauntier and finds the rhythm section making a subtle entrance. In spirit, this is closer to their debut album and while it carries more than a soupcon of the Burritos in its' kiss, it's caress is very special in its' own right.
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It remains mystifying to this writer that UK-based roots-rock is still so horribly maligned because whle there are magnificent outfits like Lone Pine, Sparkwood & 21, Michael Weston King and many more plying the boards out there, it ought to be pulling in the plaudits. The way things are going, Redlands Palomino Company are contenders to top this auspicious list. Listen without prejudice indeed.
(http://www.redlandspalomino.com)
(http://www.myspace.com/theredlandspalominoco)
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