Nowhere Near The Garden – String Posted by AlMachine on Monday, September 6, 2004 The sepia photograph on the front cover of this debut CD looks like a modern twist on a Magritte painting, and is quite striking. Televisions hanging on ‘string’ on a beach, with two more TV’s on the sand – one with a clear picture in the fore ground and one showing static half buried in the background. The weight of expectation on Nowhere Near The Garden is quite great, they’ve won a various battle of the bands style competitions, which resulted in a slot at this years Glastonbury. String reminded me of a slightly heavier, rockier ‘Mansun’, the sound elevates as the song progresses, and there is a certain swagger to the track, the strong melody oscillates between rock and a guitar based indie sound. On the evidence of the three songs featured here (particularly the grandiose ‘Mirror Mirror’) ‘Nowhere Near The Garden’ won’t sink and will metaphorically speaking be the television in the foreground. Greg Thomas