Well, Michael Eavis certainly seems to have fallen for The Travelling Band in a big way. As winners of the New Talent competition at Glastonbury, the festival organiser hailed their music as "the sounds (that) took me back to my musical roots". They have also picked up praise from Marc Riley on 6Music and an endorsement from Stuart Maconie (though he expressed reservations over their name, quite rightly). This is their debut album, and follows an important rule - put your strongest material at beginning. Opening track "Only Waiting" is completely brilliant, a tight, old-fashioned song that sounds as if it has been around for years. And whilst the rest of the album is pretty good also, it never recaptures the strength of its opening number. Instead, things do rather merge into one, each song the next in a succession of breezy arrangements and sweet melodies. It is also an optimistic album, with only a handful of songs descending into melancholy and introspective reflection. 'Biding my Time' echoes of early Gomez, whilst songs like 'Angel of the Morning' and 'High Five' are redolent of The Traveling Wilburys.And so this is a good album, rather than a great one. There is certainly promise here, but unfortunately things do lapse into a generic country sound a little too often. This Manchester band have built up a strong reputation so far, and hopefully have a bright future ahead of them, but as an album the component songs here do all sound like other artists. Hopefully on as they go on from here, they will find their own distinctive style from this encouraging start. 61%The Travelling Band on MySpace