The Red Well - Amid Storms We Arrive

ROCK

This Edinburgh outfit have been impressing live audiences for years, and this debut album does a great job of capturing their unique blend of post-grunge and Scottish folky indie. It’s an ambitious record, epic grandeur lurking in the dynamics of ‘Put In A Good Word For Me’ and especially the awesome ‘Water, Eventually’, while there is a thread of poignant melancholy throughout, most noticeably in the plaintive ‘Skerryvore’.

Singer Jim Abel’s emotive vocal is matched by arrangements that marry the wilful exuberance of Pavement with the heartfelt songsmithery of Springsteen’s more thoughtful moments. All in all, a quality calling card.

(Fence)