It's funny, you know. Singer-songwriters, that hazy collective sobriquet applied to so many man-and-his-guitar these days, are the kind of people you'd imagine to be all about heart and soul. But these days, and often quite rightly, the genre has come into a fair bit of disrepute for banging out paper thin artists who rest their whole career on one chart-friendly button-pushing number.
Not for Smoove & Turrell though. For starters, they're a duo. But more importantly, their brand of singer-songwritery stuff - highlighted perfectly in new single Gabriel - is possessed of such soul, such genuine quality that you'd forgive mostly everyone else for packing up and going home.
The vocals are rich and sonorous, deep and soulful. Just like the darkness of the night-time set video, this is music for the star-light hours, a stellar performance of a more full-bodied kind of song. The duo have already had exposure on both Football Focus and Strictly Come Dancing, and Radio 2 loved the track so much they playlisted it five weeks before release.
But such acclaim is understandable in the presence of a song of such beauty. Maybe it's the beginnings of a sea-change, but Smoove & Turrell come like a breath of fresh air into a market straining under the weight of pale imitation types. In this instance, Gabriel is the real thing, the genuine article.
Gabriel is available to download on iTunes now.
