Cherryfalls - The Prize

There's no relief in sight for fans of bands like Keane, Snow Patrol, Coldplay and Doves. You seem to be getting piled under a series of bands releasing beautiful records that may seem nearly interchangeable at times. Fear not, pop music lovers -- the news is not all bad. When London-based Cherryfalls releases Winter Winter on March 28th, you'll have a lot more to listen to and love. The impressive first single from the album, "My Drug", is already getting a major push from BBC's Radio One, a sign of the great things to come.

Joe McAdam, the band's Glaswegian lead singer and guitarist, took a huge risk in uprooting himself from his home in Scotland and moving to London in 2002. Busking his way around Carnaby Street and Leicester Square, he set about creating his band piece by piece, picking them as if out of a lineup each time he would watch the members playing in other bands at various London nightspots. Joe's professed love of both Neil Young and Radiohead empowered by his own supergroup-of-sorts has generated a simple, beautiful thing. Winter Winter is a blend of inspired harmonies and gently persuasive love songs that, though eerily reminiscent of other bands in this category (Joe's voice is nearly parallel to that of Thom Yorke at times), is an exceptional recording in its own right. It conveys a warmth and honesty that is disarmingly beautiful and will certainly be one of the most talked-about releases of the year. If Cherryfalls is the heir-apparent to the sounds from their genre-mates, it is not without a fair wink towards it's major influence, Pablo Honey and The Bends era Radiohead. Any of those bands could have easily have given birth to a recording as good as Winter Winter.