Dry The River - New Ceremony

For the past month or so, there's been one CD that's been back on my stereo again and again - the Dry The River album sampler. I'd be the first to admit I'm not always the biggest fan of guitar bands, and hold a particular dislike for Mumford & Sons (or what they stand for at any rate) - who Dry The River have been compared to on numerous occasions.

But for me, Dry The River excel on every level that Mumford don't. Where Mumford so often idle in a stale landscape of landed gentrification and overwraught, treacle-like songs, Dry The River feel infinitely more vital - a more engaged, energetic band to hold the banner aloft in the new year.

With the weight of the prestigious BBC Sound of 2012 now resting on their shoulders, all eyes are set on the band and their forthcoming album Shallow Bed to see if they can measure up to the hype. And in tracks like album standout New Ceremony, they match every expectation and then go some way further.

From those fuzzy guitar hooks that cuddle the opening bars of Peter's Liddles almost lullaby-like vocals right through to the starry-night barn dance string sections, New Ceremony comes on filmic in its scale and bursting with a passion far larger than the band itself.

It's the chorus where the song shines at its most intense though - like another of the album's best moments, No Rest - one of Dry The River's greatest qualities is their ability to leap from one tempo to another mid-track in a sprawling feat of musical athleticism that sweeps the listener along in a dash of emotions and blurry adoration.

It's as if the song is a sole boat caught amidst the stormiest of seas, teetering on the brink of a mile-high wave - caught on that cusp of peril and adventurous dering'do - before plummeting head on into the unknown. The result is profoundly exhilarating, a bracing wash of shivvering musical pleasure.

I've long lamented the current lack of guitar bands able to write a decent pop hook, but Dry The River certainly have landed on the knack, with New Ceremony as the jewel in the album's crown. That chorus is the kind of pure, refined brilliance even the great Gary Barlow would be proud to call his own.

Soaring above the spires of towns and down across the plains, roads and railways of the land, it floats on and on - a rallying call to arms. And one, when Shallow Bed is released in March, will be answered in its droves.