Nava Cross: Self-titled

[John (Biscuits and Gravy) Davy]

http://www.reverbnation.com/navacross

On Nava Cross’ Myspace site their influences are listed as “The 50s and 60s, the blues, the country, the rock, the roll”. Fair enough, you can hear most of that in their cheerfully blokish take on all those things. They don’t sound quite like anyone else but, nonetheless, are solidly in the tradition of mid-70s pub rock, which similarly fused all those influences into something very English.

         There’s some electric guitar in their performance but the overall vibe is more acoustic: some nice slide guitar, harmonica, sax and even a little banjo all feature alongside the acoustic guitars as these five guys set about enjoying themselves and entertaining us with some fine songs (16 of them, with no real low points)) that mostly have a really infectious bounce about them – enough to get the kids dancing and the dads smiling happily. Dean Baker leads from the front with an energetic vocal performance, giving it laldy as they don’t say in Essex, where these boys come from.  Actually, they sound to me very much like an English version of The Lorelei, a band similarly committed to delivering tuneful mayhem that will always put smiles on the faces of the punters. These guys are looking to break out of their home turf and onto the wider circuit – I reckon they’ll do well.

John Davy