Sat 14 Jul 2007
LEA VALLEY DELTA BLUES
Source: THE WORD MAGAZINE

"Damn right they've got them Lea Valley Delta Blues - cuz they should be MASSIVE.

It's not all crime, grime, grindie and Pete Doherty's grotty ghost in the not-so-rotten London Borough of Hackney. Morning Bride are an Anglo-American five-piece based in the occasionally troubled borough...a brilliant roots rock band with solid gold tunes.

They're less country and western than urban n' eastern, although the belting voice of co-lead singer Amity Joy dunn lends authentically "americana" vibes to soaring balladry that Ryan Adams would give his decayed eye-teeth for (viz: Zero One, Zero One and Faith Is Blind).

Every song on this little-big record is a triumph. This Place Is No Place For Harbouring Angels builds from the delicate duelling of cello and pedal steel into a thunderous, arms-aloft tap room anthem. On Replica, Dunn and treacle-voiced Mark James Pearson duke it out like Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, albeit with less insipient perviness.

As for the finale, a live version of the rootin' tootin' inner city anthem Mother Hackney: if it wasn't for the lyrics about crack, this would surely be a shoo-in for the theme tune to the 2012 Olympics. The best thing to come out of Hackney since the White Stripes recorded 'Elephant' there."

reviewed by Craig McLean