It’s not a movement yet, but busker music might be heading into trend territory, from out of the UK toward the West Coast. If the starting point was last year’s Oscar darlings, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and their movie Once, then it’s possible we’ve found our first decent street band to come in from the cold.

Fellow London tube buskers Jeff Davis, Fergus Griffin, and Aldo Silver (I am not making this up) decided to take their act to the states, and formed L’Avventura [Official, Myspace], taking a chance on hooks and pop melodies without ditching their acoustic sensibilities honed in London’s busy subway.

With minor missteps typical for a debut release still intact, Your Star Was Shining is a fairly solid collection of tunes. The two openers, “Swandive” and “Pretend You Don’t See Me”, slide awkwardly from funk rock into the delicate acoustic jangle of album standout “Rocket Sue”. In fact, L’Avventura clearly does better when they strip down to the core of the song. When they complicate things with keyboards and distorted guitars (and the occasional goofy lyric), things like “Nightmare Blues” happen, the only truly skippable track of the album.

At their best, L’Avventura hone Elvis Costello from his vinyl punk days. At their worst, they sound as if they’ve turned down the lights and listened to a lot of Three Dog Night. Like, 1970′s pothead guidance counselor ‘a lot’. Either way, “Black Venus” and “Here’s to Absent Friends” kick ass, and will easily provide you and your hipster friends the perfect soundtrack to drink PBR and smoke American Spirit cigarettes to.

“Pretend You Don’t See Me” [mp3]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Last 5 posts by James V. Mitchell

• Land of Talk - Fun and Laughter Review - December 3rd, 2009
• Backspacer Sticks to Your Ribs - September 14th, 2009
• Creed Spams Twitter - August 25th, 2009
• New Radiohead Track, "These Are My Twisted Words" - August 13th, 2009
• Malajube - Labyrinthes Review - July 30th, 2009