FLEDGLING Austin, Texas, award-winners The Band Of Heathens brought their raw and keen-cut brand of Americana to the Cluny on Tuesday.

With the weather warm and sticky, the multi-talented fivepiece could be forgiven if they woke up the next morning thinking they had returned home to Austin’s famed Antone’s bar.

Rarely has a young band made such a great impression in Texas, or, for that matter, in the world of Americana. With three visits to Germany already clocked up, and this short visit to the UK, the boys are set to brew up a musical storm.

Built around a rock solid rhythm section of electric bass and drums, the trio of lead vocalists, Ed Jurdi, Colin Brooks and Gordy Quist, who like nothing better than cranking it up on electric lead guitar, have it made.

With so much freedom allowed to the frontmen, both as players and vocalists, the band turn up the heat with Brooks on his lap steel, Jurdi with his fantastic soulful singing and Quist, who has an uncanny knack of setting off songs.

Maurice Hope