AMERICAN CLAY

American Clay are a four piece band from Glasgow, and for those outside of Glasgow there doesn’t seem to be that much we can find out about them at the moment. Multi-instrumentalist Martin Johnston, drummer of Pronto Mama, moves to front of stage and is joined by Ross Stewart, William Clapperton and Chris McKeown. ‘Talk’ is the debut single to come from the group and it is to be released by Derry based indie label, Smalltown America.

Commanding and driving drums get ‘Talk’ underway and they are soon joined by jangly guitars and bass. Spacious and airy vocals come in to play soon after, with everything sitting nicely together, remaining tight and clear. Throughout ‘Talk’ there is an interesting ‘clean heaviness’, at times it is heavily distorted with a balance between all elements maintained and no element over-powering, then at other times there are slight shoe gaze impressions that come through with cleaner but still effect laden melodies.

‘Talk’ proves to be a strong debut release for American Clay, and lays down an exciting precedent for what we can expect to see from them in the future.

Words by Rich Anderson

Tipped by Neil Wilson from Scottish Fiction