All Our Good Friends

'If you’re the sort who waits for a groundswell of opinion before buying an album, you’ll be missing out on this gem of a debut, its fuzzy, lo-fi murmuring wonderfully evoking the spirit of Sparklehorse’s kinder, gentler side; you’ll never get to enjoy the cunning way To Catch the Stars reinvents the hook from Across the Universe, the Mick Ronson stylings on Bleach to White and Long Enough to Bring You Back, the quirkily out-of-sync double-tracked vocals on Radio. It’s great. Trust me.' LONDON SUNDAY TIMES ****

'If you’re the sort who waits for a groundswell of opinion before buying an album, you’ll be missing out on this gem of a debut, its fuzzy, lo-fi murmuring wonderfully evoking the spirit of Sparklehorse’s kinder, gentler side; you’ll never get to enjoy the cunning way To Catch the Stars reinvents the hook from Across the Universe, the Mick Ronson stylings on Bleach to White and Long Enough to Bring You Back, the quirkily out-of-sync double-tracked vocals on Radio. It’s great. Trust me.' LONDON SUNDAY TIMES **** "Promise" is the debut long player from All Our Good Friends, aka London based solo artist Johnny Daukes. a haunting suite of songs drawing on classic singer-songwriter tropes, combining them with the sonic palate of Radiohead and a melancholic english voice reminiscent of Robert Wyatt.

A fantastic debut.' ROUGH TRADE ***** 'London-based solo artist Johnny Daukes is yet another entrant into the great British singer-songwriter continuum, although few can boast having been described as the "Dennis Potter of indie rock". On the album 'Promise' any of Daukes' identifiable influences are a bit of a stretch from the usual suspects. You can hear the likes of Pink Floyd, Luke Haines and on a track like 'Radio', there's a harnessing of the glacial mournfulness you'd expect to hear from Sparklehorse. The album has a lo-fi intimacy to it that goes beyond stylisation, characterised by a home-recorded sound that has more to do with ambition usurping means rather than the usual hiss and kookiness.

A very strong debut indeed'. BOOMKAT.COM THE ALBUM 'PROMISE' IS AVAILABLE FROM HMV, ROUGH TRADE, SELECTADISC AND VIA iTUNES. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..