With their hearts in the Home Counties and their heads in Nashville, USA, The Shires combine the best of both musical worlds on their debut album Brave. Combining the classic pop-rock drive of Fleetwood Mac with the uplifting sing along anthems of The Lumineers, British duo Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle are being tipped for great things in 2015 by industry insiders - as well as their growing legion of fans...

The Shires debut album Brave is part-pop, part-country. While I did, on balance, enjoy this collection of songs, I didn't find that there was anything here that I'd be willing to dig the CD out of the cupboard for in six months time. It's very much a product of the here and now and very unlikely to be one you'll want to dig out in the future.

Highlights, for me, included 'Jekyll And Hyde' (which for some reason reminded me of the theme tune to My Name is Earl); 'State Lines' is a beautiful, slow track; and 'Made in England' is a tongue in cheek song that, in case you weren't already aware, highlights that the duo are proud to be English.

On a side note, maybe "The Shires" was not the best thought out name for the band. Several times while writing this review I managed to mistype them as "The Shites". In fact, in one potentially tragic sausage fingers typing incident, I managed to present them as "Brace, The Shites"

7

Nick Smithson