*   *   *   * (and a half)

This is a happener from first spin. Immediately impressive.

It's nicely honest and sincere, not over-messed-around-with on the production front and gells together as if maybe they were blood brothers.

Pete Gow writes the songs and the band wraps them up with a plain and simple uncluttered treatment.

Last time I encountered anything that so squarely stopped me in my tracks I was standing three feet away from Jason Ringenberg as he Tenpole Tudored the stage with his right foot and worked a Glasgow audience into a lather With A Bible And A Gun.

England's finest, Michael Weston King, came close too when wowed a crowd at the same city's King Tut's.They are nearest to being 'same school' on Take It From Mojave which has all the power of God's Other Son from The Good Sons' 1995-issued SINGING THE GLORY DOWN.

Gow's the man who brings the basic ingredients to the studio - captivating lyrics, and melodies that are solid keepers.

This time around (it's their third EP) they did the session 'live' to come a little closer to how things are with an audience working up a sweat and bopping along.

On third or fourth listening, you start to sense a jangly Del Shannon Hats Off To Larry thing happening back there somewhere in the mix that doesn't sound in the least intentional but really makes this swing on a different level to that which you hear first time around. Whether a flook or a nice production touch, the handling of the organ (piano with gaffa tape over the strings?), brings a spot of extra magic to the opening track, Polariod.

Mike Scott and The Waterboys are the only folks I know who have recorded anything quite as beautiful as Tilt-a-Whirl. It puts goose pimples on top of the goose pimples. As the track is playing, I am thinking: I wonder if anyone manages these guys?

If there was a TV equivalent of Pop Idol for thinking people, I've found the winners of the first series.

Take It From Mojave provides some clues on where the band name came from. Case Hardin is a central character in Boston Teran's novel GOD IS A BULLET, set in the searing heat of the Californian desert where a couple are slaughtered in mysterious circumstances. In the song, Gow manages to ponder another story with a tragic ending which still has not been fully explained - the death of Gram Parsons. He takes the opportunity too, to reveal his own deep-rooted torments about his father's passing and the void that remains.

Turn Around, even more tortured than the rest, aches with the same feel as The Stones' White Horses and has the kind of integrity we expect these days from Steve Earle.

All that's left to be said is this:

My appetite is whetted. Now, I need to see this band live.

Fancy some gigs in Scotland, lads? LT