He might have an annoying H in his Christian name, but Rice's debut album suggests a promisingly authentic talent. American reviewers have already done their best to crush him under comparisons to Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley, though his mix of folk, blues, country and epic pop ticks off superficial references to all kinds of people - Dylan, Mike Scott, Woody Guthrie, even the woefully neglected Adam Masterson.

The album title is derived from the Gram Parsons song Hickory Wind, a ghostly fragment of which appears near the end of the disc. But Rice has packed several years of hard experience into these songs, enabling him to keep a sense of overall shape even when proceedings threaten to run amok with string arrangements or pseudo-metal outbursts. He's especially convincing with the surreal reverie of City on Fire and the Basement Tapes-ish whimsy of I wouldn't Miss It for the World.