Bloom, Red & The Ordinary Girl

Tres Chicas, the country-rock band that includes North Carolina natives Lynn Blakey (Glory Fountain), Caitlin Cary (formerly of Whiskeytown), and Tonya Lamm (Hazeldine), was supposed to be a one-off. Their 2004 debut, Sweetwater, garnered solid reviews and folks turned out in droves to the small venues they played. The trio is now a going concern and Bloom Red and the Ordinary Girl picks up and takes off completely into the stratosphere where that album left off. They left American shores to record this, and enlisted Robert Trehern and Neil Brockbank to produce (the pair work with Nick Lowe a lot). Consequently, Brockbank and a slew of other mates like Bill Kirchen, B.J. Cole, Bob Loveday, and Steve Marwood help out the core band — Cary on violin, Blakey on acoustic guitar, and Lamm on electric guitar — with the addition of Geraint Watkins on piano and organ (on loan from the Van Morrison band), Matt Radford on bass, and Trehern on drums. The music is simply the finest set of country-rock love songs you're likely to hear. It's tough, mysterious, and utterly feminine. The trio's voices are way upfront, presiding over a set of originals and covers that are deeply moving, even startling, in their earthy elegance. ~Thom Jurek, All Music Group