Sweeping The Nation – 3rd April 2013

In the six years since the last ESP LP there’s been a couple of Brakes albums (though that seems to have come to a halt now), three Thomas White solo records, European dates with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and several quadrillion side projects, guest appearances, fill-ins and touring band slots for the White brothers. Back together with a new album, IDIOTS, due in June, the first single does betray some of that much dreaded term, ‘maturity’, but really insomuch as it’s a grown-up, vaguely countrified take on the dynamic guitar pop of yore, a galloping blissfully summery melody under a thoughtfully philosophical song about coming to terms with loss. – Simon