Favourite Sons - 'Down Beside Your Beauty' (Atlantic) Released 30/10/06

Auspiciously propitious in their calling, Favourite Sons are on the UK minion music scene with the release of their debut album ‘Down Beside Your Beauty’. These boys come from twisted, winding transatlantic pathways and their music resonates with a matured ‘no censorship’ of what has obviously been growing in their hearts for many musical years. This is an absolutely fantastic and visionary collective of eleven tracks; its stockpile beauty is ineluctable. You get to hear magnitude Lou Reed inspiration on most of the tracks, albeit Ken Griffin and the four craftsmen Sons give lighter, bitter sweeter appreciation of the cruelties of life. 

There are traces of Bowie too, especially in the melody of opening track, ‘When You’re Away From Me.’ Track eight, ‘Pistols & Girls,’ states, "us against the world, you and me," and has the rolling revelry of drums of war and cavalry; this carries forward and volutes beautifully into track nine, ‘Hang On Girl,’ with the smouldering line, "loneliness is beautiful, strange and free". The vocals from Griffin are empowering; as he sings ‘‘I know you don’t like precious things, but I’m gonna steal you a diamond ring," you grasp at and feel like, he’s pulling on you.

You can hear potency and strength in the whole length of ‘Down Beside Your Beauty.’ It was recorded some ten months ago in Brooklyn, New York with mixing duties undertaken by chief wizard Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea).The boys from Philadephia have opened for James Blunt and have a mega weighty list of gigs in top tally cities such as Vancouver, Chicago, Toronto, San Diego, San Francisco and good ‘ole London. This band formed just two years ago and already they’re sounding like they’ve eat, slunk, drunk and been sleeping together for a decade.