Justin Sandercoe isn't a name I can say I myself had heard of before, but I get the feeling that after this debut effort we could be hearing a lot more of the talented Tasmanian.
While I hadn't heard of Justin, it's clear quite a few people have through his successful youtube channel where he offers up charming free guitar lessons to budding enthusiasts across the globe. It's here where Justin's background lies - guitar teaching - and if he's good enough to teach it, you'd expect him to have a pretty good handle on it himself right?
Well that he certainly does, 'Small Town Eyes' is a wonderful, hypnotic chilled out collection of folky guitar songs that seem to take you on a winding road that's over far too quickly for my liking. Now, generally I'm loathe to sound cheesy when describing music but what came to mind for me was long summer days, a cool breeze; in fact every summer cliche you could think of. But, it's a great chillout album, something to stick on the old ipod, kick back to and just relax
Personal favourites on the album include the opener Forevergreen and Page 99, both of which have just beautiful melodies and surprisingly for me also the last track Broken which is an instrumental. I'm usually not too big of a fan of songs lacking vocals, I tend to lose patience but I feel with Small Town Eyes, you're so drawn in by the strings it fits perfectly with the vibe.
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I think if I have a complaint, it's that perhaps at times it seems a tad reserved. As nice as the laid-back, chilled out dreamy twangs are, a couple of the songs tease a more up-tempo number but mellow back out. I'd quite like to see him maybe be a bit more ambitious with his next offering and go for some real jaunty, toe-tapping stuff.
What Justin does for Small Town Eyes however, he does very well. It's clear he's a brilliant guitar player and simply from just listening you can understand the control he has over his instrument. It'll be interesting to see if he does go for a slightly different direction with his next offering.
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