Reviewed by Trevor Raggatt

Bright Avenue are California-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Kepple and his three daughters. Kepple's songs are drawn from everyday spirituality and life and steer clear of cliché while remaining straightforwardly accessible. "TGIS" celebrates the singer's favourite day of the week, thank God it's Saturday indeed. "First And Lovely", dedicated to Kepple's eldest daughter, just teeters this side of tweeness but is charming nonetheless while "Pretty Thing" communicates a father's concerns over a culture which takes away childhood's innocence all too soon. The "family-band" approach, with the tracks following a harmony filled acoustic formula, creates a pleasantly retro style which harks back to the folk-rock based Christian bands of the mid 1970s. There are flavours of Petra's early West Coast style, of the UK's Nutshell, John Pantry or even a pre-orchestral Adrian Snell; with not a little Don McLean or Gerry Rafferty thrown in. It makes for a pleasant, if unchallenging, listen and the quality of the songwriting, vocals and backing tracks are uniformly good - with some beautiful acoustic guitar contributed by respected Celtic guitarist, Tony McManus. Only occasionally does the mix lapse into a muddiness which betrays the independent nature of the recording but this is not overly distracting, bearing in mind the retro flavour of the album.

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