The New Forest has many trees. It would also appear to have a band or two flourishing under cover of its foliage and one of those bands goes by the names of The Wishbones. Their album – “Forever Bound” – is a tasteful affair that nonetheless draws little from their point of origin.
“Forever Bound” walks the Americana trail but does not pause at the bus stop of dungaree clad sentimentality. Instead, a more mature and elegiac pop sensibility has been added to the choice of routes on their road map. The songs on this album, for the most part, betray a greater ambition than you would expect of an English roots type band with a very welcome Arcade Fire style sense of scale evident in both “Growing Gold” and “Second Chance”. Going large seems to suits Sam Burdekin’s voice best and he is much more convincing on that type of song than on the more restrained songs on this album.
So, whilst The Wishbones may justly, like so many of their contemporaries, be accused of going off in search of America with this album, they have at least found what they were looking for.