You & I
4/5
Catherine and Allison Pierce have been plugging away for more than a decade but even when tunes from their third, 2007 opus of sharply observed, folk-flavoured boudoir pop cropped up on TV shows like Gossip Girl, Dexter and others, these former ballerinas languished underrated and underpromoted. The sisters later split, but 24 hours later Coldplay’s Guy Berryman swooped in with an offer to support the band in South America, forcing a fortuitous rethink. Although the tour never happened, Berryman went on to co-produce (with Coldplay cohort Rik Simpson) the pair’s most cohesive LP to date.

Their strength lies in the duo’s effortless harmonies, which are full-bodied and lilting with emotion in every cadence, particularly on the radio-ready strum-pop of ‘It Will Not Be Forgotten’ and ‘We Are Stars’. Elsewhere they plough a Fleetwood Mac-meets-Jefferson Airplane furrow with ‘Glorious’. And live, the girls are mesmeric. At long last The Pierces look set to strut their long-legged way into the mainstream. Thank goodness they persevered.