Inevitably, all boy/girl, guitar/drums duos are compared to the ever present White Stripes. This includes the Brooklyn based newcomers She Keeps Bees. It's a shame, as such bands should have an identity of their own, and not get immediately, and forevermore, categorised as a “bit like the White Stripes”. In the case of She Keeps Bees such comparisons are only valid to a skin deep level. Like The White Stripes, She Keeps Bees play stripped down blues-rock. But the comparisons should end there; they have none of the energy and raw power of the White Stripes, and have no need of it. She Keeps bees simply made up of the simple, but not forceful (like that of Meg White) percussion of Andy LaPlant, and the gloriously rich, and sexy vocals, and simple guitar playing of Jessica Larrabe. The Guitar playing when used is rarely anything more than basic chords, and in some songs such as the effective opening track Ribbon does not appear at all.She Keeps Bees are therefore so stripped down, that without the vocals of Jessica Larrabe, there wouldn’t be that much merit present in their music at all. Nests barely stretches out of a fairly basic blues-rock template, but because of the wonderfully soulful voice of Larrabe this is fine, more than fine in fact, excellent. Nests is raw and powerful without having to resort to simply being energetic, and is most of all incredibly sexy. Larrabe’s voice ensures this, creating the kind of blues bar atmosphere, which makes you feel as if she’s in the room with you, transferring all of the emotion in her voice right into you. This sort of atmosphere around the record is helped by the raw, intimate and sparse sound of the album. It's lazy music, the aforementioned lack of energy means that the deep guitar chords, mellow voice and slow tempo do nothing but lull you into a beautifully relaxed, contemplative state. Exactly how good blues-rock should be.Nests, unfortunately, could be a lot longer. At only 26 minuets it’s hard to describe it as a great record, as when you’ve really got into it, and been enveloped by it’s atmosphere it’s finished. What there is of Nests is, however, very, very good. There’s enough brilliant tracks to mark this out as a very accomplished, and exciting album. 83%She Keeps Bees on Myspace