Blair Dunlop - Larkin Poe
Album: Killing Time
Label: Rooksmere
Tracks: 6
Website: http://www.rooksmererecords.com/killingtime

From the moment that Blair Dunlop and Larkin Poe performed a cover of "I'll Keep It With Mine" together at Cropredy last year, it was almost inevitable that the gods and goddesses of music would conspire to ensure that something more permanent came from that match of some of the finest young singers to emerge on both sides of the Atlantic.

That started with Rebecca & Megan Lovell (Larkin Poe) making guest appearances on Blair's debut album, "Blight On Blossom", followed by Blair and producer Mark Hutchinson hightailing it out to Atlanta, Georgia, to co-write and produce, "Killing Time".

Inevitably, Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine", does make the cut on "Killing Time", but it's the songs and ideas that came from within the collaboration that really sets this mini album on fire. The rhythm for "Killing Time" is made from the sound of a bullet being loaded into the barrel of a bolt action rifle, something that really focuses the mind.

Larkin Poe have a predilection for mini-albums and I was really pleased that "Killing Time" has followed that same approach. Across the six tracks on "Killing Time" there is the Dylan cover, the trio's version of "The Month Of January", but even in such illustrious company, it's the trios own songs that really stand out.

Two of the songs, "Strangler Fig" and "Lottie" capture one of nature's more unusual killers, while Lottie is a history lesson wrapped in a song. It's that diversity and the relative shortness of the album, always leaving you gasping for more, that makes this such an approachable album. The sound, the construction it really is transatlantic and you'll be totally absorbed.

Neil King