The Vagaband
Album: Town & Country
Label: eggsong
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.thevagaband.co.uk/

"Town & Country" is as good an example of Anglicana as you're going to hear anywhere. This debut album from East Anglia's The Vagaband highlights why they've very quickly becoming festival favourites not just in their native Norwich environs, but also right across England at events like Bestival, Glastonbury and The Secret Garden Party.

The big band sound, the core eight musicians bringing instruments as diverse as pedal-steel and flugelhorn to the mix, banjo gets to play with and compete against clarinet, mandolin and fiddle sit side by side with accordion and piano.

That diversity applies to the way those instruments are used, generating anything from ragtime and New Orleans to more Celtic and English sounds, a real hotchpotch of sounds and ideas, but like the best of home spun cooking this takes all the ingredients, throws them together and comes up with a really wholesome meal.

Most of the writing credits on the album go to one of the many multi-instrumentalist in the band, Jose McGill, often working with other members of the band, he also produced the album and designed the sleeve, as well as doing a very individual arrangement of "Sixteen Tons" a song that has had a number of interesting reinterpretations in the last year or so.

One of the things I really love about this album is the way the band don't take themselves too seriously, they take the music seriously, but are more than happy to stick the tongue firmly in the cheek for a couple of the numbers, including "Tripping On Cheese" which has rapidly become one of my favourites.

"Town & Country" is an album that has a lot going for it. The Vagaband have got shed loads of personality that they bring as much to their recorded works as their live shows. This is an album that oozes fun and would brighten up any record collection.

Neil King