Alan Tyler & The Lost Sons of Littlefield — Alan Tyler & The Lost Sons of Littlefield

Alan Tyler's got the middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon, suburbanite cowboy wannabe blues. If you can relate, fix yourself a strong Merlot (preferably in a dirty cup), take off your boots, and indulge. Heck, switch on the fake fire. You'll probably like this disc because, without assuming a position or tone so expository as to arouse any feelings of deep discomfort or spiritual emptiness, it nevertheless broaches in a mellifluous baritone the weighty, idealised, and sentimental topics that have disproportionately become the domain of country music, namely the themes of love, innocence and time lost. Sung to the accompaniment of fiddles, mandolins and a trenchant rhythm section, Tyler's well-crafted but topical songs are like the suburbs from which he hails ('Harrow'): neither here nor there, neither packed like the city nor sparse like the open country, merely situated in-between and a little bland. [Ben Howe]