Ah, the curse of the younger sibling, invariably discussed in relation to their more famous relations. Ten Tonnes – Ethan Barnett, 22, the younger brother of George Ezra – is no Solange, the cooler, artier, more plugged-in of the two Knowles sisters, who heavily influenced Beyoncé’s aesthetic.
Still, you can insert a cigarette paper or two between these Hertfordshire tunesmiths. Ten Tonnes’ songs – like Better Than Me or Give – may be breezy guitar singalongs, but they are a smidge less Jack Wills and a tad more Kooks than George Ezra’s. Co-production and co-songwriting credits on this tuneful debut album go to an ex-Maccabee (Hugo White), Nick Hodgson (Kaiser Chiefs’ songwriter), Crispin Hunt (former Longpig) and others, proving 90s and 00s indie rock survivors can carve out a second life for themselves.
As though wary of resuscitating indie landfill as a concept, Barnett cites Elvis Costello and Tom Petty as inspirations. There’s little evidence yet of that calibre of writing, but tracks such as Silver Heat have pace and attitude, which place Ten Tonnes somewhere near Sam Fender as a clean-cut, mainstream-oriented iteration of what used to be guitar–band music.
