The 19th Street Band THE THINGS THAT MATTER Self-Released Americana-style original songs played with refreshing brio The Maryland-based 19th Street Band comprise Northern Irishman Caolaidhe Davis (guitar/vocals) and his American wife Meghan Davis (fiddle/vocals who co-wrote all the songs, with Tom Verrati {banjo), Brian White (double bass) and Patty Dougherty (drums) augmenting.

This Is a marvellously entertaining band who play throughout with great verve. Jump in The Water, a tale of a Wall Street financier who renounces the rat race for a more spiritually satisfying life of simple pleasures, is positively invigorating, for example, with appealingly conversational vocals from Caolaidhe while Its True What They Say is played with such energy that, ia a different arrangement, one could imagine the song being played by a punk rock band.

Meghan Davis is herself an attractive singer, as on Trouble, a song about putting on a brave face, having been dumped by her boyfriend in favour of one of her friends and then seeing the new happy couple in the street. The title track, sung by Caolaidhe and featuring sweetly romantic fiddle, has somewhat happier subject matter for it is a marriage proposal In song, no less. With only six tracks this is really a mini-album but all the songs are interesting and lyrically coherent, all the musicianship is accomplished and the band clearly have considerable potential

Trevor Hudgett

www.119thstreetband.com