Cherry Ghost released their second single a week or so ago. It’s called People Help the People and follows Mathematics in a drive to build anticipation of their debut album Thirst For Romance, released on Monday.

It won’t be a massive surprise to regular readers of Toad when I warn you to prepare for some potentially massive amounts of hypocrisy on my behalf when it comes to this band. Their sound is too pleasant for me not to be really, really wary, but their two singles are genuinely excellent. The b-sides aren’t bad, but they’re not mind-blowing, so I await the album with a little trepidation.

Basically, if their tunes hold up and they remain no more than moderately popular then I will probably love them. If, on the other hand they become as huge as the Guardian reckons they wil after seeing their Glastonbury performance (read it here, but you may have to pull the author out of Simon Aldred’s arse by the ankles first, he’s that far up there, slurping away for all he’s worth) then I will drop them like a hot potato and disavow all knowledge.

How do I justify such blatantly shallow chicanery, you ask? Well, simple: I don’t really, I know it’s bad. That said, they have such a pleasant and mellifluous sound that they are dancing a cheese-wire tightrope between gorgeously uplifting lounge Americana, delivered in a rich and gravelly croon that warms the very cockles of your soul on one hand, and mediocre muzak for the prematurely middle-aged on the other. It really could go either way, and there’s nothing like the over-worship by Pipe & Slippers FM to help nudge anything this finely balanced into a testicle-severing plummet off the wrong side of the tightrope.

Basically, if Coldplay weren’t Coldplay, I could almost like them, albeit in a sort of inoffensive, write passively hummable tunes, yeah sure whatever, kind of way. But the minute this sort of behaviour is elevated to the ludicrously exalted hights that Chris Martin & chums have so bafflingly achieved, then it grates. Hang on, you think, they’re passable, but they’re not really good or anything, and then the Bile of Toad starts to rise and mild indifference turns quickly into psychotic loathing. And then you see and hear the fuckers absolutely everywhere and it just gets worse and worse. And worse.

Well here we sit with Cherry Ghost – are they going to be a terrific little band ploughing the Richard Hawley furrow – an old-fashioned sound, laid back croonery, something to cherish – or will they drift into the sort of depressingly over-rated muzak the likes of Turin Brakes, Starsailor, Travis, Keane and Coldplay have depressed us with over the years? Who knows, but rest assured if it’s the latter I shall be off like a prom dress and nary another mention shall you hear in the Words of Toad.

But if the album’s as good as the first two singles, which can be previewed on their MySpace page, then we might just be in for a treat – a warm and fetching one, all dressed up in clothes that look at once quaintly familiar and strangely new. The first big band of the nu-croon movement, perhaps. But that’s another post altogether…

Cherry Ghost – Thirst For Romance
Cherry Ghost – Mathematics
Cherry Ghost – Four Eyes B-Side to People Help the People

website | myspace | amazon