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Modern folk-rock, with the potential to be beautiful...

Combining Liz Young's soaring vocals with the multi-instrumental talents of Ben Goddard, folk-rock duo Ellenby's new four-track E.P 'Run Away' has the potential to be an incredibly beautiful piece of work. However, on listening to 'Run Away', you can't help feeling that someone needs to this band that sometimes "less is more"...

Every one of the four tracks on this E.P starts and finishes perfectly... just a shame about the bits in between. 'Run Away' opens with fascinating finger-picked guitar, quickly followed by Young's gentle yet powerful vocals and a warm, catchy melody, interspersed with occasional bursts of harmonica. But sadly, the mood is shattered by the arrival of crashing drums and synthesised keyboard sounds that ruin the beautifully natural, modern-folk influence promised by the intro.

And it's much the same story with 'Screaming' and 'The Dare'; you can't help but feel that in their effort to encompass folk, pop and rock, Ellenby have allowed fuzzy electric guitar wailing and crashing, irritating drum beats to detract from their captivating melodies and delicate guitar work, not to mention, completely over-power Young's smooth, full-bodied vocals.

The final track, 'All You Need To Know' comes the closest to perfection, beginning with piano chords, vocals and strummed acoustic guitar, while gentle rhythms and more twinkling piano are subtly brought into the mix... before this track too is butchered by more over-powering drums.

If Ellenby were simply to stick to the stripped-down, modern-folk splendour of vocals, guitar and harmonica that suits them so well, 'Run Away' would be almost faultless. As it stands, it feels that the duo is just trying too hard.