The Son(s) infuriate me. A band/ artist swaddled in secrecy and so the story goes,

“The Son(s) were three men, in a band, in Edinburgh, and I knew them then.
One Son went to London and made his fortune in the movies.
Another Son went to Oxford and lives in a small commune there.
The last Son eventually went back to the North East of Scotland and wrote and recorded these songs.”

Now, if I was in on it, this would be the best  thing ever, but for now it remains to torment me as I don’t know whether to talk about The Son(s) in singular or plural and all the while I suspect  to find out at some point it’s someone we know of quite well already. It’s a good job this is a great debut album or I’d be really annoyed.

The self-titled album is transportational, flavoured in lazy days under a Californian sun, most likely reclined in a porch somewhere between the midday heat and a broken-bodied sunrise after an epic night out.

Lead track, ‘Dogs, Boys  & Men‘, is care-free with a defiant, “I don’t care about you” theme. Drenched in nostalgia, the track puts you at ease and instantly makes you feel like you’ve just stumbled across a band which you’ve foolishly been missing out on for years. This, the most assertive track on the album, makes way for dreamy, intoxicating waltzes and a laid-back, sun-drenched swing.

Blending acoustic guitar and piano with rich vocal harmonies soaked in heart, this is an  alluringly hazy work with no jagged edges.  The vocal has a texture of a man who has lived, hope and despair intertwined, flowing free from the same warm-bodied lungs.

A particularly euphoric moment created in ‘Sonny, You’ll Never Get That Ride‘, in a bizarre contrast of styles, is reminiscent of  Moby’s ‘Porcelain‘.  It’s surreptitious high-end piano breaks through swelling, leaning vocal layers, a fight between daydream and drug-induced bliss.

Washing over you with a sense of comfort, the album ends on the hypnotic close harmonies of  ‘Mars Just Plied Her With Gin…‘ a track which almost rocks you to inebriated contentment, the final guitar riff ending midway as though the player himself has nodded off.

Released by Olive Grove Records on March 7th, The Son(s) soul-thawing debut album is available to pre-order now from here, allowing you just enough time to get word perfect to your Summer soundtrack for festival road-trips and early morning hangovers.

Kirstin Lynn