Named after the punchline of a favourite joke, liked by Blur's Graham Coxon, this all-girl quartet of twentysomethings from Hertfordshire have delivered a debut album of great promise.
The multi-talented line-up of Paula Cox (vocals), Belinda Cullen (guitar, vocals), Natalie Barowitz (clarinet, keyboards, vocals) and Emma Bell (cello, bass, vocals) forge harmony laden, dreamy, reflective, indie folk-pop tunes with a twist on 'How To Get Home'.
Already hailed in some quarters as the 'indie Corrs', The Bush... are blessed with far more substance and personality than Andrea and her siblings. Sounding at times like the Sundays and early Cranberries (this album's producer Stephen Street twiddled knobs on the first Cranberries opus), the girls flit from light and flighty to barbed and quirky, Cox's vocals a heady hybrid of Harriet Wheeler, Dolores O'Riordan and Sinead O'Connor.
Their largely acoustic songs of friendship, love and sex swing from the beautiful, weak as a kitten balladry of 'More Than I Could Ask For', to the perky, Kinks-flavoured Brit-pop strum of 'You', from the brisk strumming and haunting clarinet of recent single '(Sometimes) You Do That' to the jaunty, folksome the Seekers meet the Mamas and the Papas-ish harmonies of 'Wishing I Was Little'.
Plenty to enjoy here then, although the moniker needs some work. Perhaps the punchline 'What About A Hot Water Bottle Worral'. Great joke. Never fails.
