OxfordBands.com

Next up was the class act that is Chantelle Pike, a country-folk-pop singer who is part PJ Harvey and part Tammy Wynette. She was backed by a selfless drummer and bassist who toiled anonymously on a needlessly short leash. Still, they performed their function of augmenting Pike's sometimes over-clever, sometimes not-clever-enough songs, but it's Chantelle that really matters and I've never heard her sound so good. She has so much technical control, but the swoops and melismas are never overdone and are just part of her emotional rhetoric. She and her band get it exactly right on a song called, I think, 'Sweet Symphony' which is passionate, taut and has a superbly singable chorus. She needs more in that vein.

By Colin MacKinnon