JD & Folk have been plying their trade as, mostly, a duo for a few years now mixing their take on well known country songs with their own original material and have now released this, Inn Slide Out, their first collection of their own songs on CD.

The band was formed by John Le Sauvage (the J of JD) after spending time as bass player in a few indie bands in Guernsey, most notably The Half Day Fridays, when he teamed up with veteran pedal steel guitar player David Dales (the D of JD) with the Folk provided by a rotating cast of occasional extra players, many of whom feature here.

By their own admission this ‘album’ is really a personal collection of recordings that John and Dave have chosen to release in a limited format, directly through their gigs, and as such it does have the feel of a glorified demo.

Within that though they have used all studio tricks at their disposal to create a surprisingly big sound.

While it’s clear all the tracks are based on John’s acoustic guitar and vocals with Dave’s pedal steel, which adds a nice country twang, added on top, at points throughout the collection there are extras added. So we get violins, electric guitars, drums, harmonica, backing vocals and possibly more.

Things start off in fairly upbeat form with the country rock of So The Story Goes, covering a number of fairly cliche but well handled country tropes, from there though it all takes a much more confessional tone.

3 Shots To Happiness is a track recycled from The Half Day Fridays, but here presented in a more singer-songwriter fashion which marks the res for the set.

While the whole thing is ultra confessional on the part of Le Sauvage, and at times that means it can feel a little self-conscious or even self-indulgent, it’s clear that it comes from a place of openness and honesty that counteracts some of this.

This actually means there are points that, through his personal experience, it feels like Le Sauvage is exploring a version of the modern male psyche that exists in opposition to the more often seen view for toxic masculinity — this is a fragile masculinity on display that exists far more in the real world, away from trolls on Twitter.

As it goes on things do become a bit too musically familiar but as said, as a loose snapshot of the band’s output as it stands at the time of recording it does its job and, while it ends on a rather melancholy note Inn Slide Out is a generally easy listen that with John’s heart on sleeve writing style and Dave’s unique pedal steel sound certainly gives the record its own identity and place among recordings made in Guernsey.