The Maybelles in Brighton

Songs about incest, alien gospel, the audience making farm animal noises - it could only be country & western, couldn't it?

In fact, it's a blend of Appalachian music from all-girl trio The Maybelles. They use double bass, guitar and fiddle with three voices that - while each being distinct - come together perfectly. And it makes a great sound, a loose old-time country reminiscent of The Carter Family, Gillian Welch or The Be-Good Tanyas (both of whom they cover).

There are some great dance tunes, where Melissa's hard-driven double bass thumps out a promitive rock 'n' roll rhythm for Katie-Rose's fiddle to scratch, jump and leap around.

And there are some songs tackling traditional themes played with a straight face, like the touching 'Leaving Town' about a mother abandoning her young son to escape the law. Jan, on guitar and lead vocals, is a Yorkshire lass and it's easy to make the connection between tunes like this and the kind of songs Kate Rusby or Ruth Notman would sing.

But that would be too much heartbreak, misery and murder balladery for a whole night, so they pitch in a few lighter songs. There's the aforementioned incest song, with a complicated family tree and a rousing join-in chorus of 'We love our Pa'.

And 'Done Been Probed', which plays up to the Deep South stereotype with twin themes of alien abduction and the good Lord Jesus.

Tonight's gig takes place in Brighton's finest small music venue, The Greys. Run by semi-retired actor Chris 'Binky' Beaumont. It's the perfect setting for a band like The Maybelles, with tonight's full house packed around the low stage and rammed up against the bar.

It's exactly what you want, a good-time band in a good-time pub. Who'd have thought that a bit of the Appalachian mountains by the beach would make a perfect night out?