Sounding like the love-child of PJ Harvey, Karen O (The Yeah Yeah Yeahs)  and Abbe May (Perth band The Fuzz), The Duke Spirit’s Leila Moss is your quintessential frontwoman. Other than the pure fact that the band indirectly (or directly as seen in the Dukes Alphabet; a section on the bands website that pays homage to their most revered) wear their influences on their sleeves, their sound is so aptly fueled by characterisitics ascended from their contemporaries, it’s difficult not to draw comparisons, or indeed witness similarities between themselves and subsequent artists.

The Duke Spirit’s debut album Cuts Across The Land exemplifies the above attributes.

Title track and album opener Cuts Across The Land begins with an untiring drum beat and equally as pounding guitar and bass, with vocals entering just as bluntly. The chorus arrives with an almost suger-coated cheer, contrasting the evidence of angst in the former elements of the song. The lyrics are also intriguing, bucketed with nonsensical, fragmented sentences that trivialise the song.

Make me tall job
Walk in and you say nothing
And you speak like myth, girl
No one wants out
And I don’t think so
Never ever going to let go
Of soul
With these fingers
In pockets
- Cuts Across The Land

The loud/quiet, stop/start nature of Win Your Love overtly pays tribute to PJ Harvey’s The Letter. Chunky metallic guitars puncture the silent lapses, as do the vocals, only losing grip during the breathy passivity of the chorus. Unmistakably a standout track on the album.

One of the more fast-paced songs on the release, Fades The Sun features rushed drum beats and vocals of the same nature that wail and screech, halting only at one central position.

Lion Rip I have recently seen exploited by the nations television networks as “new punk”, a label I’m not particularly coherent with, although traces of punk are somewhat evident on this track. The gentle ramblings weave throughout the escalating guitars and are even met by a melodic chorus hidden beneath the serving.

Love Is An Unfamiliar Name has one of the most praise worthy openings I have heard in a while. An almost “George of the Jungle” style primal drum beat (as good a description as I could compose), brings with it ascending guitar strums, amplified bass and softly spoken words that soon explode on themselves in megaphone-style. The track then bursts into a frenzy of sound, completing an admirable tune, complete with sing-along “ooh ooh’s”.

All in all, this debut is as good as most debuts come. While it doesnt present new turf, it certainly exploits generic musicality into a form worth listening to. A band on the swift rise that should be heard.