Peter & Kerry - La Trimouille

Brought together through their shared label Tape Club Records, Peter Lyons and Kerry Leatham’s collaboration has been evolving and maturing over the last couple of years. Already capable of a powerful live show (as I was lucky enough to witness last month at the Barfly), and having proven their worth with their 2011 ‘Clothes, Friends, Photos’ EP, the debut album is equally as accomplished and utterly joyful to boot.

Though the She & Him brand of male/female vocal duetting can risk bordering on the overly cutesy, Peter & Kerry banish such fears within their glorious representation of failing relationships and references to keeping up role plays of happiness. “But this isn’t personal, yes I still love you but I’m not in love with you,” Kerry sings on the stunning ‘Split For The City’.

The instrumentation is also appropriately dark, and while tracks often stray into the synth-pop territory, theirs is a sound that can be described as ‘grown-up’; intelligently arranged songs with such beautifully cynical subject matters.

It’s Kerry’s parts that really make this the album it is, the slight husk of her voice an absolute delight, but if there’s one tiny gripe to be had here, it’s on opening track ‘I Don’t Know’ - while it’s probably the most outstanding song on ‘La Trimouille’, if you take the melody of the line “I would have asked you then and there to marry me,” and replace the words with “cause we’d rather have a bowl of Coco Pops” it fits in with an odd perfection. Of course, this reviewer probably remains the only person to make that connection, but still… It’ll eat at you.