What does it sound like?:
Given how this band seem to be the bee’s banana for so many on this site, I thought it belatedly time to, um, get on the train, and establish whether we are talking TGV or 3rd class single carriage. And the truth is neither, being more a largely very pleasant day out on the Bluebell Railway, or some other heritage steam engine, lovingly restored and managed by amateur enthusiasts. They say it is all the future of prog, an odd way to look at a style strictly embedded in the past, but actually, I would go further back still. Whilst clearly a nod to folk traditions, I see this as entirely classifiable within the admittedly broad church of folk. Prog, as a label, may diminish it’s appeal, putting off those, like me, who remember how we looked and behaved when in the thrall of that musics heyday. (Have you looked at any photos of yourself from the early 70s recently?) This is a folk album, albeit in the style and spirit, if not sound, of Jethro Tull when they/he were waxing all bucolic about things wooden. The band would be a shoo-in for any folk festival I can think of, Cropredy somehow being the obvious one, but biggies like Cambridge or Shrewsbury also. The instrumentation is all as you would expect, conventional rhythm section, with added fiddle, brass, flute, over suitable keening guitar and old fashioned organs. The embellishments of what sounds like orchestral extras, string sections and brass ensemble wash in and out and add texture. (This may be a moot point, but I felt they could have saved a few bob and added suitable atmosphere, nostalgia even, with a mellotron instead, but that may have pushed them too far into cliche.) OK, so in the same way that the taste of all meat has to be compared to chicken, I cannot resist the memories I could hear in the overall mix. Vocals can only be compared to Peter Gabriel, albeit early solo years, pre his infatuation with world musics and discovering sequencers. (Hell, one track even references Solsbury. Os Salisbury, maybe.) The flute also made me thing it would be nice if PG suddenly whipped his out again these days. Keyboards bizarrely reminded me of Ken Hensley era Uriah Heep, churning cheesecutting hammond. (So maybe that is the Salisbury reference was apt for that?) The brass additions, oddly, drew echoes of Peter Cetera ballad era Chicago, actually no bad thing, cementing the truth that these are all melodic and, relatively short tunes, with not too many rhythm changes to frighten any horses, heavy or not. And also a little of Brass Monkey in the pastoral ambience of, I think, “Wassail”. (Memo: some of the lyrics are a bit generically olde englande, but no real harm done) Elsewhere I hear a bit of Caravan, in the Geoff Richardson viols years, and, I have to say it, Yes, in the chorus vocals and, when it appears, piano. And the lovely little diddle of minimoog that accompanies the piano on one track. Do all these echoes hinder? Actually, no, as I see them as influence rather than as any attempt to copy, the overall being an original take on older styles.
What does it all *mean*?
They’re good. How much of an audience they have I don’t know. I have never heard of them outside this site. Do they tour much? Who do they contact outside their own little niche? Get out there and play outside in the english summertime, say I.
Goes well with…
Bare feet, beer and a wistful mood.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
All those I have mentioned, and who miss the past, wishing it were still decades ago. So most people here.
Insightful, informative review that made me want to give this a listen. Thanks.
Good review Honourable Retropath II, regarding touring, a BBT gig is rarer than a Labour Party Election victory. I do not agree with all your warblings, about 7/8 of them. If you did enjoy ‘Folklore’ can I guide you to the previous album ‘English Electric’, which is actually a blending in of ‘English Electric I & II’ with additional songs. Don’t be put off by that, it is an absolutely great album.
If you do not like E.E. I will refund you in full, a mutual friend will see to that. ; ))
I am skint mate so don’t look to me @andyourbirdcansing spent all my money on rock and roll and stuff mainly with a beat.
Big Big Train are okay but its all a bit twiddly dee after a while – instrumental parts are good, vocals a bit meh!! Steven Wilson much better if you are looking for something in this genre.
I wasn’t necessarily seeking, just felt I should be browsing. Can’t say I will be playing the record incessantly, but may enjoy any song appearing on shuffle. FWIW, as far as Gabrielesque vocals go, and the like, I think I would take Big Big Train over Elbow. I have the Raven and the collection of singles/covers by Wilson, and that is probably enough to be going on with in that vein.
Right, first things first @stevet (shouldn`t you be working you skiving cont), I will give you the lucre to pass on to @retropath2 because my offer still stands.
“but its all a bit twiddly dee after a while” bollocks, bollocks, bollocks*, yes maybe some Prog acts may sound that way but NOT, I repeat NOT BBT. And I repeat again BBT`s `English Electric` in both Part I or Part II or as `English Electric` is one of the finest rock albums of recent years not just Prog albums. retro do yourself a favour, what have you got to lose. I await your review in this place.
*Aye it`s not just others on here who talk bollocks.
I have the album and very good it is too and exquisitely packaged. However imho it is not ‘one of the finest rock albums’ of recent years because a) it isn’t rocky or dirty enough and b) the singing lets it down (slightly). I know its a totally different band but I have same with the Decembrists, great musicians, good ideas but singer’s voice is rubbish.
I’ve been really enjoying this record. I got to see one of their three live appearances last year. Very impressive line up. The drummer is magnificent.
I think they need to work as a live band much more to enable them to loosen up a little. There are plans for a “few more gigs” in London next year but I agree they should be on the festival circuit. They don’t go in for the “Bellowhead” entertainment approach and nor do they need to, but there is a vacancy for a top level British Folk Rock band these days. It could well be them.
A voice of reason and sanity. You are correct @martin-s sir.
@andyourbirdcansing – what pray is my voice if not of reason and sanity? Your insinuations are most insulting young man.
@stevet, insinuations? Me?
Good review, @retropath2. As my obsession with this band is well known, I shall refrain from too much gushing. The comparison of the vocals to PG is well made – David Longdon was actually auditioned as Phil Collins replacement when Ray Wilson got the Genesis gig. The band’s lack of live dates is partly because they are spread far and wide but also because several of them have ‘day jobs’. They have said they’ll play more dates in September 2017 – they have to plan that far ahead to give the members that are in other bands time to plan their schedules. (eg. drummer Nick D’Virgilio not only lives and works in the States but is also in Spocks Beard.) @andyourbirdcansing ‘s recommendation of English Electric Full Power is a good one. In fact, much of Folklore would sit well with that album.
Having said all that, I love the album and I’m so glad that someone else reviewed it, thereby avoiding any raised eyebrows as I gushed my way through a review (“well of course HE loves it. He’s nuts about the bloody band”)
Did I read somewhere that David Longdon works part time for a supermarket? (It was a throw a way comment on the facebook group)
I saw that but then also read Greg say that it was he & David who were trying to make a go of the band being their full time occupation, so not sure.
I think it was you @niallb that put me on to BBT in this place a few years ago well before `English Electric`. I remember buying a couple of albums direct from the band. Within hours of receiving the albums, I`m not sure which, i ordered everything else available and every album is good, some very good.
Thanks niall.
Why thank you, sir. It was @Beany that first posted a video, saying that he’d come across it somewhere. Like you, within a few weeks I had the entire back catalogue, and was posting tracks on here at every opportunity.
I went to the first gig at King’s Place and was happy to proclaim it the best gig I had ever been to. I think, in retrospect, I have been to more visually spectacular (a Springsteen gig, on a hot night in Cardiff,) more important, etc. But no live experience, before or since, has affected every part of me as much as that Friday night, last August. Apart from everything else, there was a shared joy in the audience, from the end of the first song, a sort of “oh my god, they are even better than I dared hope, they sound amazing,” that choked me up as I applauded. I will never forget that feeing of communal exhilaration, of pure and simple joy in something so basic as music.
That’s right blame me. I get the blame for everything around here. I introduced my family to “the Scottish band” and now my daughter has gone off to see them in that London tonight. Tomorrow she travels to Glasgow to meet fellow nutters and will be seeing them on Saturday in Edinburgh. She has only just got back from seeing them on the Isle of Lewis last weekend.
She is finally having her wild teenage years (she is 35), has met people from around the world at their gigs and found herself a boyfriend through the band. Oh dear.
Nice review – looking forward to hearing it. I liked their previous albums, but found them all a bit too melancholic to bear repeat listens. For contemporary prog, I prefer Kaleidoscope.
That’s so interesting, as it is the melancholy that is one of their traits that I love. But then it has always been songs of loss, of something out of reach that have attracted me most, over 50 years of buying music. It’s why Dusty’s version of Going Back is the greatest song ever recorded (well, today it is.)
No, it’s the Byrds version. No, it’s this version, by the Icicle Works
Goin back is indeed one of the best songs ever written but the Nils Lofgren version for me every time.
Nils `bloody` Lofgren???
No. it’s The Byrds. It’s always The Byrds.
`Melancholy`? That`s one of the reasons I love the music of Gene Clark so much. For me no other singer/songwriter comes close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjU1f1vujbg
I can take any amount of Gene Clark’s brand of “melancholy” because I don’t find it at all depressing. There’s yearning there, sadness, but always some other quality that lifts it well clear of being just melancholic. And he writes gorgeous tunes, often uplifting in themselves. Big Big Train’s music I find a little despairing, a little grey, in a very British way – there’s no songwriter there of Clark’s calibre.
(And …. there’s that drum sound. It didn’t hurt the perevious “rockier” material too much, but it’s intrusive here. POK (beat) POK (beat) POK (beat) POK (beat) POK (beat) …)
True is that, the drums, despite an earlier comment by @martin-s as to the drummer, are a true weak spot. No Bruford/Collins he, nor even a Richard Coughlan or Keith Baker, given my other references.