The first things that struck me upon examining the CD was that there were fifteen tracks in all and that the average length of each was over 6 minutes. Considering I already knew that Red to Violet puts out all their own material, I was impressed already - how many albums have you bought recently containing nearly an hour and a quarter of fresh material, even from the most well known bands?

The accompanying documentation was a little more bizarre. The short official sheet from Dutch production company Commuse, listing the CD, stated in bold no less than four times that the CD and accompanying documentation contained "NO porno, NO obscene material, and NO immoral matters.". What's that about? It made us laugh, anyway, but surely the Dutch government can't be that paranoid about customs declarations!!! [Note: RTV inform us that this is a requirement of the US customs and that the forms slipped into our package by mistake. We've never come across this before - we continue to learn something new every day!]

With a two artist line-up consisting of Female lead vocalist and male guitarist, Red to Violet manage to create the sound of a much larger group. Their Indie soft Rock style really works it's way further into your mind with every play, until you just can't help humming their songs loudly wherever you may be. Or is that just me?

Catchy doesn't even begin to describe this - back in the eighties, the trend was to create tunes you could hum to yourself on the way to work. This has sadly changed over the last decade, and in my humble opinion too many bands concentrate on the stuff that fills the moshing pits of local clubs and don't take any notice of those of us who either want something a little more relaxing or are old enough to appreciate music with understandable vocals! Don't get me wrong, I can dance with the best of them - but I'd rather put Red to Violet on in the background to relax. Add to this the fact that the duo seem to spend most of their spare time either writing and producing their own material or getting their faces and voices on TV and radio, and you have something quite special here.

Red to Violet are understandably proud of their music, and keen to spread the word. While other bands languish in the back rooms of little known bars, Red to Violet are out there distributing promotional material and issuing press releases - and as a result, their name is becoming almost synonymous with quality indie rock for an increasing amount of followers. We receive regular updates from the band, many of which we feature on our news page, and there is more information than you can shake a stick at on their homepage at www.redtoviolet.com.

It is difficult to improve on some of the comments already used to describe Red to Violet. US Cable network CN8 thought it fair to describe them as "The new Eurythmics" while Jim Santo of demouniverse.com said "…blues groove reminiscent of Sticky Fingers-era Stones... Fans of The Verve and Joan Osborne will find much to enjoy in Red to Violet". It really is only a matter of time before Red to Violet hit the big time, and once that happens there will be no stopping them. They are already a runaway train, receiving airplay across the US and Europe as well as managing to get their video shown on national TV in Australia and several networks stateside. With releases in places as far apart as Canada and Japan, it seems as though there is nobody who hasn't heard of Red to Violet already. So why am I telling you how good they are - just look at the reaction of the worlds media, go buy the album and decide for yourself!

The Red to Violet Abbey Road mastered debut album is available via the web at stores such as Cdnow and Amazon, Sam Goody Streetstores in the US, and now ContactMusic.com in the UK - and with the way this band promotes themselves, it can't be long before one of the big time bods notices them and then they'll be everywhere!