Sons & Daughters
Double date: No, they've got nothing to do with the Aussie soap opera. Sons & Daughters are two guys and two girls from Scotland who share a passion for dark, country-tinged rock, and whose début mini-album, Love the Cup, has had critics raising their glasses in approval. They formed two years ago in Glasgow, taking their name from a Bob Dylan lyric: "Your sons and daughters are beyond your command" from The Times They Are A-Changing. They also cite Leonard Cohen, Smog and Tom Waits as big influences on their shadowy sound. And Johnny Cash is a big hero - so big that they named their last single after the Man in Black.
Post-post-rock: Adele got to know drummer Dave Gow when both were members of Arab Strap, and he rashly promised to play drums in her next band. When Adele and her friend, classically trained bassist-mandolin player Ailidh Lennon, began writing songs together, Dave was summoned to keep his promise. They poached singer-guitarist Scott Paterson from an outfit called March of Dimes, but nobody else minded because MoD was essentially Scott performing solo with an acoustic guitar. The foursome began hanging out and rehearsing in earnest; the music, though melancholy, was anything but depressing. Although post-rock was the big buzz in Glasgow, largely thanks to Arab Strap and Mogwai, Sons & Daughters wrote concise, melodic songs with a black heart and a sparkly edge. The twin vocals of Adele and Scott were compared to "a Buckfast- drenched Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazle- wood", and their mandolin-tinged mix of Scottish folk, Americana and dark, dramatic rock prompted one pundit to describe their music as "killbilly".
Friends Ferdinand: At first, Sons & Daughters had trouble getting noticed at home, but a friend of the band, New Yorker Ben Goldberg, liked their demos and released the mini-album on his Bada Bing label. And so, with Love the Cup only available on import in Glasgow, the band toured with fellow Glaswegians Franz Ferdinand and won crowds over with their intense, indie-folk sound. Soon they were signed to Domino Records at home and Love the Cup was released in remastered form.
Hit the floor: Sons & Daughters are currently on tour and will play Whelan's in Dublin on Monday and Auntie Annie's in Belfast on Tuesday. "There is a very dark side to our music," says Scott. "There's a lot of violence and melancholy in it, but at the same time, it's music that you can dance to. At gigs, there's nothing worse than seeing people just standing around, unsure of whether it's perceived to be cool to be enthusiastic about the music. Essentially it's dancing music, even though to look at the lyrics you wouldn't think it."
