Long a presence on Manchesters acoustic scene and now joined by Paul Fleishman, ex of Fury 161, this trio paint portraits of ruined love under desolate urban skies, and display them in a gallery of bruised violet ballads. Dragging the dregs of tattered faith by the scruff of its scrotum vocalist Ellie daubs great swathes of casual vitriol with a remarkable voice at once strangely seductive and coruscatingly scathing, like having a date with Salma Hayek only for her to pull the ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ routine one time too many.

Happily staying well clear of the bottomless pit of woman wronged screeching harridan Alanis Morrisette clones, parallels can be more aptly made to the likes of PJ Harvey, especially on the opening jarring, jangling, bluesy clunk of ‘Flowers In My Hair’. Enough to raise ‘Like God’ from the brink of gauche grunge-lite drivel and instead into a seething sandstorm squall of spite and off-hand disdain.

Standout track ‘Me And Mine’ is a sad-eyed stroll roaming through reminisces and Autumn leaves, as though Maria McKee, Throwing Muses and Julianna Hatfield were at a school reunion.

Indeed Miss Akhgar’s voice bears comparison to Maria McKee (and Marianne Faithful at times if you’re interested) and there’s a real taste of McKee’s ‘Life Is Sweet’ masterpiece here, full as it is of dark, skewed, glittery, gritty grease-paint pop (‘Making Little Boys Cry’) with an eye on the epic and a mind for majestic moments.

‘She Never Tells’, another standout suggests that over time the slight sight-seeing trips down the road of indie-grunge will be off the list and they’ll further explore the hints of grandeur to enter the secret garden of the totally unique.

And maybe they’ll still be ‘making little boys cry’.
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- Stu Gibson