Press

Chris Herrington, Memphis Flyer says…

“Deering & Down’s charismatic, inventive guitar-and-voice duets

Singer Lahna Deering’s scratchy, soulful voice is the band’s charismatic calling card. It evokes Janis Joplin without the blues power, or Christine McVie dressed in Stevie Nicks’ lace gowns, or a post-sex-change Rod Stewart.

Inventive guitarist Rev Neil Down matches her, hammering and twanging and darting around Deering’s vocals like a true duet partner. Because Down’s guitar exploits lend the music such a charge, giving the songs a sonic element that can actually equal Deering’s ear-catching vocals.

Break This Record is at its best on the rave-ups: classic-rock numbers that shuffle like the Stones instead of stomping around like a mundane bar band.”

and Mark Jordan from The Commercial Appeal…

“The duo of Deering & Down are a little harder to pin down, their roles as hard to define as their bluesy, at-times gothic music.

With a band that includes keyboardist Rick Steff (Cat Power, Lucero), John C. Stubblefield (Lucero) and Kurt Ruleman (Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, Panther Burns) — they’ve fashioned an album that follows in the tradition of the great old Sun records in the way that it blends a variety of styles into a new, distinct vision.

She may or may not be a great singer, but her vocals have great character. Whether it’s a country waltz like “Abbey” or the exquisite pop ballad “Richard of Los Angeles,” she often sounds like someone who came in second in a cigarette-smoking contest between the Divinyls’ Christina Amphlett and Marianne Faithful.”

Brett Fleming, WEVL 89.9FM, Memphis, TN:

“It can be assumed that the journeyman guitarist was key in composing these songs that weave so seamlessly diverse strands of blues, jazz, country and rock.

If David Lynch somehow orchestrated an early 1970s Fleetwood Mac session, you might get something like Break This Record.”

Chris Herrington, Memphis Magazine

“Deering and Down, a recent addition to the local scene, separate out the guitar and vocal chores with a collision of inventive, classic-rock fretwork and soulful singing that’s one of the city’s more exciting new sounds.”