Wheel-spinning out of Dodge like Bonnie and Clyde on opener Did I Break The Law, Grace and Aaron Bond prove capable getaway drivers on a debut album that unfolds like a road movie.
We Fly Free confirms what two EPs hinted at: the British husband-and-wife are heavy enough to get your attention and quirky enough to hold it, with songs that give you a kicking but leave a boot-print on your heart.
Bound For Nowhere is the best of the album’s 11 cuts, the raging guitars spiced by Grace’s pleasingly creepy violin, and when they lock vocals on Walking On The Wire it transcends the route-one stomp.
Elsewhere the duo show their depth: I’d Have Fallen is a hypnotic stop-start dustbowl lope, while Breaker Of Chains evokes a sundown in a sinister Southern town, the sound vindicating the pair’s insistence on tube tape echo and reverb chambers.
But then, in case the cops are catching up, they end with a runaway title track that makes John Bonham’s beat from When The Levee Breaks sound like someone tapping on a biscuit tin. It’s an album to ride shotgun with.
