Tristan and the Troubadours – Demo.

Hailing from Witney in Oxfordshire, a town most notable for its world famous blankets, according to the travel and tourism board at least, Tristan and the Troubadours are an impossibly young troupe of intrepid teens (except twelve year old guitarist Sam Conway) who could just put their town on the map for a very different reason in months and years to come.

That is of course if this, their first ever serious recording since the band's formation in the latter stages of last year is anything to go by. As varied as it is distinctive and cemented with an almost unnerving confidence of identity, this is a recording of bubbling youthful buoyancy underpinned by a genuine, bonafide grasp of song writing that cannot be measured in terms of age.

‘I Am Troubadour' a track which, in name alone could represent the bands call to arms, is an edgy number which rattles and rumbles along like Patrick Wolf joyriding in an old school bus with all forty two past and present members of The Fall, flirting perilously with the edge of the road as Tristan himself speaks of ‘the edge of reason.' The result is a wonderful blend of dark intention played out with simple, innovative musicianship.

As the title might suggest, ‘Run Away to Sea' is a more morose, sombre track which pivots on dreamy guitar picking as singer Ben Conway laments indifference and loss of identity as well as showing contempt for conventional rhythm with a real sense of inverting the old maxim of ‘it's not what you say, but the way you say it.' As the song itself states ‘innocence is merely a preference,' a point which is especially true when possessing a real sense of knowing, the like of which Tristan and the Troubadours have in abundance.

Jack Shankly