Reviews

Artist: The Divine Browns
Single: Feel It
Label: Self Released Demos
Tracks: 4
Rating: ***
Contact: www.thedbs.net

The Divine Browns are a London based three piece, consisting of Davina, Mary and Tom. The band have just released their debut single through their own site.
This is a very acoustic sounding recording, at times you're sure you can even hear the nylon of the guitar strings. As that grabs you, so does the combination of instruments. The harp is a much neglected instrument on the acoustic roots circuit, largely because it's such a pain to move around, but it can also add fantastic texture to a sparse sound. Tom, is the harper by the way and that plus other additional instrumentation such as the kazoo, gives the band the ability to move off in directions that are an impossibility to bands that only use guitars.
Then there's the voices. I was immediately thinking of Anna Domino, particularly in her Snakefarm days. A quick phonecall confirms that on the opening track, Feel It, the voice belongs to Davina, it got a very deep and rich quality to it. It contrasts well to the lighter more sing songy sound of Mary on other tracks.
As a bonus the voices also work well together, giving the band so much scope. The voices and instruments plus some particularly lucid songwriting themes highlight a band with obvious promise.
The single is a highly polished set of demos and is exclusively available through the band's website. Given the right breaks, we could well be into a Waif's scenario where everybody claims to be the person that discovered them. Well to draw a line in the sand. You read about them here first, before they were signed. Check them out and be the first to tip off your friends.