The Grande
Album: Bleaker St.
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.thegrande.co.uk

The Grande are a six- piece, fully-fledged alt-country band but they aren't from Lubbock, Luckenbach or even Laurel Canyon. No, they are from Liverpool.Their base is a pub in a village called Lydiate on the rural fringe of West Lancashire. They are led by chief songwriter /singer/ acoustic guitarist Ben Sherwen but this is no solo singer with a backing band, the Grande are a real band. Sharing lead vocals is the mellifluous Melissa Parker. The band has the familiar line up of lead guitar [Joel Lynch], bass [Paul Davenport] and drums [Phil Stevens] but what makes the band sound so authentic are the contributions of multi-instrumentalist Scott Poley, who can, and does, play anything with strings including pedal steel, lap steel, mandolin, banjo and guitar. He's also the band's producer, just for good measure. Completing the line-up [on the album, at least] is Christian Madden on hammond organ and other keyboards. Christian was also in an Anglo-American band called The Earlies, who you may have heard of.

"Bleaker St." is The Grande's first album although it sounds remarkably mature in terms of the songwriting and playing. All the songs were written by Ben, who is a master of his craft.

The album gets off to a cracking start with "Don't Melt Me Down", which has a great riff and soulful vocals from Ben and Melissa. Next up is one of my favourites on the album, "Hollow House", which has a great early Eagles /Jackson Browne feel to it [ think" Take It Easy"] courtesy of some excellent guitar/pedal steel interplay The high standard continues with the next song "Open Heart" which was the lead track on the band's debut EP and which has deservedly received airplay on the radio as it is an excellent song, with great performances by the whole band and Christian.

And the hits just keep on coming with the following song, Rose Tinted Picture which features lovely vocals from Melissa. The performance reminds me, curiously, of the best work of the Beautiful South [and that's meant as a compliment]. Great song.

"Life's On Hold" is a slow, gentle duet which sounds a though it should be a big country hit. Melissa takes lead vocals on "Wasted", a slow-burning ballad and another great performance.

The volume gets turned up on "Coffee and Wine", which features some great honky tonk piano from Christian and steel from Scott and has the feel of the Rolling Stones' country rock period.

The album closes with the title track "Bleaker St.", a haunting acoustic number with quiet, almost whispered vocals and excellent mandolin and steel accompaniment.

Really, every track on the album is, in the words of the late Frank Carson, "a cracker". My guess is that if you like artists such as The Eagles, Gram Parsons, Poco and The Jayhawks, you will like The Grande.

Peter Cowley