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Polly and the Billets Doux are, this week, releasing their striking debut album ‘Fiction, Half-Truths and Downright Lies’.  Opening with single ‘Follow My Feet’, you wouldn’t be alone in thinking they hail from American roots, but it’s all local and brilliant picnicking music. Like ‘The Rounder’, it’s an easy listening, infectious summer track, that blends the soft and subtle tones of Polly’s voice with a cheery blues background that’s smoother than your average country singer. Bar-blues guitar leaves you wanting to click your fingers and move your feet and it’s not long till the albums moved on to ‘To Be a Fighter’.  It’s gritty, bassy intro lifts the album to rawer guitar tones with plenty more of the same soulfully, soft vocals that infuse the likes of soul, blues, rock, jazz, country and folk. They move between these genres effortlessly, topping it all off with a traditional English twist.

‘Charmed’ and ‘Lead Me On’ incorporate more of their jazz element as the vocals take the song to poignant New York jazz, whose pure sounds wouldn’t be out of place on a rom-com soundtrack. It’s not often that every song on an album catches your ears the first time round and is fresh enough that it’s a complete joy to listen to. With an album example of such artistic versatility, the success of hazy, harmonica blues in ‘The Cup and the Lip’ and ‘The City and the Sailor’ is no suprise, these guys definitely deserve great things.

‘I Would Ask’ adds the beauty of a love song to the album, through a mix of both male and female vocals that are beautifully harmonised and charmingly sedated, before ‘Don’t Trouble Trouble’ picks up the pace with a true rock n roll tune, and ending on ‘Back to Earth’ that’s plenty danceable and proves why they made the perfect choice for a spot at Glastonbury Festival. You’ll quickly find yourself immersed in the album, as though you’ve gone back to simpler times, fantastically delivered and thoroughly entertaining. Each song is a pleasure to listen to, but the first half of their album is definitely the strongest. Polly’s voice remains a joy and the album as a whole is a fun, uplifting experience.

The physical CD can also be purchased though the mINtSOUTH Music Store.