Blanche, a five-piece from Detroit, have a famous friend: Jack White of the White Stripes, whose patronage has nudged many a fledgling band into the limelight for a while.

Blanche look like the family in the film The Royal Tenenbaums appearing in a remake of Bonanza. Lead singer Dan Miller might be a backwoods Lyle Lovett, though without Lovett's wry nonchalance - his persona veering from lugubrious (between-song banter is filtered through a neat Jimmy Stewart impersonation) to wired and nervy. The sullen, dextrous banjo player, Patch Boyle, known as Little Jack, looks like an awkward child. Miller's wife Tracee, statuesque in an obvious way, handles basic basslines with reasonable aplomb but can't really sing.

There is the overwhelming sense of contrived oddness, which sometimes filters into the largely plain Americana of their songs. Bluebird is an amiable enough hoedown; Garbage Picker, one of the stronger songs, has a bitter momentum; Crucifix, a new song, has real bite and an almost indelible chorus. The vocal interplay required by Do You Trust Me?, however, bizarrely underlines the apparent lack of chemistry between the Millers.

Jack White, rumoured to be in town after a Reading Festival appearance, didn't drop by to bless Blanche's best song, Who's To Say, the queasy plaint of an unlovely suitor, with his strangely anonymous solo. He was barely missed.

Blanche can't quite pull off the genuinely unnerving hellfire of the thunderous 16 Horsepower, they don't quite conjure the spooked otherness of The Handsome Family, they don't spark with the tight-wound sexual angst of Violent Femmes. It's as if they're playing characters by whom even they aren't entirely convinced.