Review Corner

Category: Folk

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    Margo Cilker: Pohorylle

    Unusual name, unpronounceable album, gloomy cover: we weren’t expecting much from this but it’s great, and it’s her debut, too. She’s a working, touring musician and the album is inspired by her experiences on the road. At heart it’s rootsy Americana but she draws in other influences. Keyboards are provided by the Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee,…

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    Neil Young: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion 1971

    This is part of the Neil Young Archives Official Bootleg series and it’s excellent. The last album we reviewed was good but mostly interesting for the now-classic songs played early in their careers, the crowd mysteriously silent as Young rolled out future bangers. This new live release conversely is genuinely enjoyable, and we’ve had it…

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    Jake Rodrigues: Lucky Spoon

    We played this a couple of times before anyone hit the nail on the head, and that was (inadvertently) a grumpy chum, repeating the complaint of the elderly that old music is better, but like a stopped clock occasionally correct, specifically, of Radio Two: “Every song was a reminder of how pop music was; simple…

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    Luke Sital-Singh: Dressing Like A Stranger

    We liked Luke Sital-Singh’s early material but found his last album a disappointment, something that in turn was itself disappointing, as he can be good. He said thank you on Twitter for the poor review, and we’re assuming he was not merely being sarcastic but had a wake-up call, and this new album is really…

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    Rob Heron and The Tea Pad Orchestra: The Party’s Over

    Rob Heron and The Tea Pad Orchestra’s fifth album is a homely offering. It’s not a classic release but it might encourage you to see them live. The sound is cliched country and western, familiar to fans of Bob’s Country Bunker where the Blues Brothers were forced to play Stand By Your Man and Rawhide…

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    The Lucky Ones: The Lucky Ones

    The Lucky Ones sound like they come from Kentucky or some other Appalachian area, playing what is musically straight bluegrass / roots string music, but they’re actually from the Yukon, Canada, made famous by the Klondike Gold Rush and more latterly by Ice Road Truckers. (We once went to the Motown Museum in Detroit, where…

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    Neil Young: Carnegie Hall 1970

    New Young albums come along faster than the 38 bus to Crewe and the quality can be patchy (including a set recorded as a warm-up to this) but this is superb. It’s the first release from his Official Bootleg series.It’s just Young and his acoustic guitar and piano and there are 23 songs, many classics…

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    Mari Joyce: Dear Moon

    We listen to a lot of challenging music and for some weeks we’ve been missing something calming; we had some lovely Elgar songs and plenty of folk, but it wasn’t quite what we needed. Then came this. Ten seconds in, and we knew this was it. It helped that it reminded us of Fisherman’s Woman…

  • Ben Bedford: Portraits
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    Ben Bedford: Portraits

    This is Bedford’s sixth album; his last, Hermit’s Spyglass, was excellent and this is even better. Perhaps not surprising, as he has picked songs from his first three albums to create a collection of songs, the intention’s clear from the album title. Hermit’s Spyglass told some good tales – it mapped daily life on a…

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    Beans On Toast: Knee Deep In Nostalgia / The Unforeseeable Future

    Beans (aka Jay McAllister) normally drops one album a year but clearly lockdown has left him with little else on his plate and we get two. They’re both self-explanatory in their titles. Knee Deep In Nostalgia sees man-of-the-people poet and guitarist Beans looking back fondly at his past and his likes, from memories of favourite…