Helina Rees

We cannot praise the attitude and quality of your performance enough. The quartet were punctual, polite, impeccably presented and overall sounded incredible.

The band is spruced up by the addition of Tariq Bedgood on drums, Helina Rees on fiddle, and Jones’ co-producer Daniel Tudor Edwards who doubles up on bass, all of which makes for a distinctly interesting debut. Rees’ contribution to the album’s sepia-tinted ambience is crucial; her fiddle playing emboldens the lightly seasoned folk-rock of “Stealing Shadows”, and adds a touch of spit and sawdust to the record’s spiritual centrepiece “Beasts Come Alive”. She’s to the fore once again, on the toe-tapping duet “Sewn Shut”, where Jones’ countrified twang resembles the vocal style adopted by Billy Bragg for his Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue.