First Listen: Mt. Desolation

So two guys from a British piano-pop band decide to form a country side project. Sounds like it'd be awful, right? Well, the two guys are Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin from Keane, and it's actually not bad at all. Of course, it's not really country - you won't hear any authentic shit-kickers or tear-in-your-beer ballads here. But these are good songs - what else would you expect from Rice-Oxley? - and the music, though more mid-tempo pop than anything else, is very good. Rice-Oxley has a decent, if limited voice, as he showed on Keane's recent EP Night Train, and he'll never be mistaken for a country crooner. But that's the only weak link in a very nice collection of tunes. I'm particularly fond of "State of Our Affairs."