The second band featured in MySpace Cadets is the lovely Maguire & I. The story behind the name is rather adorable, which you can find on their MySpace (linked below). Folk and country isn’t for everyone but if it is your cup of tea Maguire & I will be right up your street. It’s nice to see faux American accents fall out of favour as the Northern Irish accent is more widely accepted in the music world these days, for a start. The tender vocals of Andy Good are backed up by Emma Hopley, creating some gorgeous vocal moments in the featured tracks. Orla McKeever’s violin parts are reminiscent of The Waterboys at times (and at others Los Campesinos! surprisingly enough) while Brian Grogan’s percussion parts are appropriate: he never steals the spotlight but he’s more than comfortable plodding away in the background. However, when needs be (such as in “Hold On Pet” at the intense finale) he can really go for it.

[..]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Due to my impending departure from Norn Iron *sniff* I’m running a new feature called MySpace Cadets. (Feel free to groan.) Every week I’ll review three bands that have come to my attention through the flawed medium that is MySpace and try to provide a free download from each band. This week’s first band are Cardigan Drive.

Awkward rhymes, witty lines and a popular folk style are core components of  the Cardigan Drive sound. It seems like half the Bangor music scene has been part of the band at some point or another with Lou from Kowalski and members of Captain Cameron but the one constant has been Gregg Houston (the face of Babysweet TV). Cardigan Drive have a nice lo-fi sound that transports us to a house on a small farm somewhere in the American Midwest, and for me it’s quite easy to hear the influences of early Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith upon the material produced by the band.

[..]