From Lyttelton, The Lucky Lost is the songwriting vision of Darren Tatom who sings, plays guitar, percussion and glockenspiel here. He is ably assisted by Wiliam Field on double bass, bass and backing vocals, Lu Whitely on cello, keyboards and vocals, and drummer Jack Cameron. A couple of others made the sound happen, not least recording engineer Ian McAllister, who pulled out the finest vintage microphones he could find to capture this largely – call it what you want – alt-country folk, alt-acoustic pop, acoustic countrified folk… In any case, the words of the songs are delivered in a very straightforward manner, not exactly spoken word but without any vocal pffaferry. Straight up sentiments, lots of geographical references, largely acoustic instruments and clean melodic lines. A personal favourite (besides the cello in general) would be Bitch! with lead female vocal, and the classic refrain of “the bitch is back…” Can be interpreted in so many ways! (Actually this one sounds like a Bernie Griffen number). Ready Or Not sounds more Leonard Cohen then Leonard Cohen. This is a jaunty, not overly serious, or bitter, set of 13 songs to singalong/ tap/ click/ nod or just listen to.