My First Tooth – My First Tooth & The Rubies [EP]

Alcopop Records

April 29, 2009, 10:27 PM

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My First Tooth hail from Northampton. My first thought on hearing this debut EP was: is that Northampton, Massachusetts or Northampton, England? The band, formed around the core of singer-songwriter Ross Witt and violinist Sophie Galpin, deliver a wistful, warm-hued indie-folk not unlike the acoustic Americana of an Okkervil River or Wilco. Once you get past the initial Americana feel, their Englishness reveals itself: a gentle country B road ride rather than the widescreen glamour of Highway 66. The six songs have a charm and general air of loveliness about them but are not as vividly memorable as those of their American cousins. In the same way the violin seesaws from joyful to mournful, so do My First Tooth’s bitter-sweet ditties. If the meaning of the slightly cryptic lyrics is never fully clear (“If you’re sleet, I’m snow” is the engaging but slightly hollow refrain to lead track ‘Sleet and Snow’) the mood of each song is effectively delivered with delicately placed instrumental adornment, particularly violin and trumpet. The mood shifts smoothly from the gentle fiddle-led stomp of ‘Red Carpet Rides’ to the tender, spare pleading of ‘Honesty Honesty’. It’s serious without being po-faced, jaunty without being twee and if the male vocals appear a tad non-descript over six tracks, they gain from the gorgeous female accompaniment.

This is an impressively accomplished debut with distinctively quaint charms. It may not have you hitting the accelerator pedal hard but if My First Tooth can go up a gear from this debut they should be motoring with us for the long run.

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