The Shires

Give The Shires credit for sticking to their guns on their second album and continuing with a refreshing but polished approach to country pop. It would have been easier to do a Taylor Swift and move on from the gentler and more innocent charms of their debut Brave and go full contemporary pop.

Instead they've made the right choice; keeping the hook laden formula and adding more variety. The likes of the title track and Beats To Your Rhythm are made for the larger venues their forthcoming tour will take in. The Shires are best though when they let the vocals of Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes breathe and intertwine. The voices blend stunningly, like a more upbeat Civil Wars. The delicate Naked (surely a future single) and Common Language perfectly showcase this.

Also to the band's credit is the avoidance of country music cliche. There are no references to the bars and trucks so often referenced by Nashville's finest, or worse than that, the miserably misogynistic lyrics. Here, the focus is kept to matters of the heart or varying standards of parenting; good on Daddy's Little Girl and bad on Everything You Never Gave.

Alongside Ward Thomas, the impact of the band's success on country music might be over-stated but it may have led to fans of the genre getting younger. A CMA report recently showed that 47 percent of 18-24 year olds now identified themselves as country music fans. In the short term they have certainly captured a niche but history shows that country music has a tough time in the UK. Just as Mumford & Sons were lazily labelled folk, The Shires maybe given the country badge, but ultimately, this is just great pop music.