Hiding on the peripheries of the recent renaissance that folk music in this county has been enjoying of late is a little known group of London based musicians known as Jesse Quin & The Mets. On paper Mr Quin’s credentials look superb, having previously been a member of both Noah and the Whale and Laura Marling’s band.
Despite this live performances have been few and far between, as well as recorded output it would seem. This CD I have to review features 3 tracks available to download from Rawrip.com (follow the link off their MySpace page) but having had a look there it would seem there is no official release forthcoming just yet.

Jesse Quin & The Mets offer up some delightful soothing folk pop songs. The opening track is a mid tempo ballad complete with gentle string and piano accompaniment. His vocal delivery puts me in mind of a more folky Kings of Leon. Lyrically it may not be the most impressive thing you’ve ever heard, the opening line being a somewhat predictable rhyming couplet along the lines of “Switch on the morning news / Seems like the whole world’s got the blues”, but it’s nonetheless the enjoyable. The second track, The Race starts off slowly, again with more of the same achingly predictable lyrical compositions. However half way through the song really comes alive with female backing chorus and a subtle disco-esque drum beat with a few catchy hand claps thrown in for good measure. To round things off is a nice bit of catchy finger picking guitar along the lines of Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly on the final track Sirens in the City.

Overall an enjoyable effort for first batch of recorded material, look out for more to come from this band in the future.

By Adam Tolladay

Rating: 6/10
Format: Demo
Label: Unsigned
www.myspace.com/jessequinandthemets