The Cornelius Crane - E.P Too

Review By Gary Lee

The Cornelius Crane are a three piece alt-country outfit hailing from Manchester. E.P Too takes us on a four song journey into English Americana, if you can imagine such a thing. They wear their influences on their collective sleeve with the words NEIL YOUNG very much bold, underlined and italicised. Shades of The White Stripes, Crosby, Stills and Nash and even a suggestion of (Manchester's Best Kept Secret™) I Am Kloot abound on this delightful little release.

First track 'Oklahoma and Me' is a jolly bit of four chord alt-country/blues. Simple, effective and with the guitar turned up to 'The White Stripes,' it sounds a bit like one of those TWS album tracks where they take themselves less seriously and start to have a bit of fun. But with better drumming, obviously.

Next up the bafflingly but, never-the-less brilliantly, titled 'They Sailed Like they Never Heard a Song'. It starts with a lovely bit of flair on the guitar, just an easy but great sounding slide of the finger up and down the fretboard, cool. In fact there's some very nice guitar playing going on in the background all the way through, subtle but effective. They introduce some female vocals into the mix too, it really works to boost the harmony a little. Possibly the strongest track on the E.P in this reviewers opinion.

'Don't Blame this Heart of Mine' opens with a harmonica straight from the throat of Neil Young himself. To be fair, the whole track is detrimentally heavily influenced by Mr Young. It's a good song, it really is, but you can't help but think "Heart of Gold" when you hear it and it's never good be as good as that, I mean, what is? However, it has a banjo which can never be a bad thing.

Closing song 'Pan and the Goat' is the slowest, most acoustic track on the E.P. Sweeping vocals implore "Would I shed a tear?" "I don't think so" comes the defiant answer.

On all four tracks the crisp production shines through adding the extra sheen that all good Americana should have, tying the E.P together and giving 'The Cornelius Crane' a 'sound' which sometimes takes bands years to find. They can obviously play too, which certainly helps their cause!

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