What started off as a musical side project is certainly bearing fruit for Wivenhoe’s Fiona Harmon and Nick Munt.

That’s The Wicked Ravens, a band that was formed to play a whole host of new songs the pair wrote while waiting for their main band, Hobo Chang, to get itself sorted out, line-up wise, that is.

The result was a dirty marshy mash-up of psych folk, rock, a bit roots with a touch of Essex country blues. The Wicked Ravens debut album, entitled In The Woods, was recorded in Fiona’s kitchen and dining room on an eight-track, the result of which, as Fiona puts it ‘is the sound of a bunch of musicians with influences from Coltrane to Neil Young doing what they love best, playing live and catching the moment’.

Released in 2016, it secured Fiona and Nick another publishing deal to the one they already have with Hobo Chang.

Very different to the pair’s very popular Hobo sound, The Wicked Ravens is made-up of Fiona and Nick Munt alongside Ophelia Mills on violin and Stuart Armitage on drums and percussion.

Fiona says: “We got some great feedback from the first one and quite a few gigs off the back of it. We even got a review in a magazine in the US, which was pretty unexpected.

“This new one was done very quickly from practice to rehearsing to recording it. The songs were there so we just wanted to get it done.”

The Wicked Ravens are launching the album this Friday at Mollies in Station Road, Wivenhoe.

Doors are at 7.30pm with free entry and support from Gavin Bowern.