Reviewed by Dave Brassington

It was Julius Caesar who said "Veni, Vidi, Vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered) to describe one of his victories. I can apply it to the bluegrass family band Cherryholmes and their visit to Gateshead in July; they came, I saw, and they conquered! They were a fantastic band to see live, led by father Jere and wife Sandy, plus daughters Cia and Molly and two boys, Skip and BJ. The four younger members possess incredible musical skills for their age and my wife remarked to me on listening to the instrumentals on this CD, "How can they play so fast?!" There are 13 tracks listed on this new release, track 14 being an instrumental reprise. The group wrote all of the rest of the material with the odd exception of "Devil In Disguise" which was written many years ago by Graham Parsons and Chris Hillman. The album is a joy from the first note of the opener "I Can Only Love You So Much" until the closing and thought provoking track "Traveller". The second track "The King As A Babe Comes Down" is actually a very high class Christmas song, in fact, in my opinion it must be the best new Christmas song since Mark Lowry's "Mary Did You Know?" Another really outstanding track is "This Is My Son" with its wonderful double meaning of a young boy going off to war (presumably Iraq or Afghanistan?) and God's own son. I also particularly enjoyed "The Sailing Man" with its jolly rhythm, although it did put me somewhat in mind of the great Everley Brothers track from the late '60s, "Bowling Green", which I also loved. The production by Ben Isaacs is brilliant and apart from the addition of Jeff Taylor playing an occasional low whistle, all the rest of this fantastic album is the group themselves on banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddles and double bass.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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