Dot Creek
	Ill Seen, Ill Said
	(Independent/CD)
	Caroline Hennessy

Finally, after a long wait, the debut album from Dublin's occasionally shambolic, but always endearing, Dot Creek. Their country music that looks back to the golden age of the Byrds and Gram Parsons while simultaneously taking in influences from early REM and Will Oldham's various incarnations with, perhaps, a touch of Low. Dot Creek may be country, but they are about as far away from Daniel O'Donnell and Garth Brooks as you can get. As with their seven inch vinyl releases in the past, the soaring angelic voices of Shane Redmond and Nigel Power are strongly to the fore but this release also gives the other members – Biggley (guitar/sounds), John Kennedy (bass) and Liam Ryan (drums/percussion) – room to shine, something particularly evident on the atmospheric instrumental 'Nuisance Gator'. From the nonsense trade-off lines of 'Trailer' to the incorporation of a Barry Manilow song on 'Cast', and from the vaguely Gomez-like 'Unquiet' to the gorgeous 'Wintering', 'Ill Seen, Ill Said' is an engaging introduction to a band we're already anxious to see produce album No 2.