‘Hider’ entices the listener along a path leading towards an enchanted forest; the opening vocals and guitar the deep green vines that intertwine all across the way. The trees can be seen, but are behind a translucent veil that hangs like white candy floss and sparks here and there with specks of gold. When the veil is reached and passed through Continue reading
folk
Dryadic: No Time Like The Present
No Time Like The Present opens with upbeat foot-tapper ‘The Hat’; a story of gigging here, there and everywhere told in a cheeky Ian Drury-esque vein; smiling through not simply the trials of life but more so the death sentence of using Ryanair and then laughing riotously about it all with new best friends for life who’ll only be so for the night of a show. Not only lyrically, the vibe is caught in the music too; a feel of looking out of a car window at a never before seen fields, tired and thinking of the previous night while heading down a new stretch of motorway equally energized about the potentially likewise one to come.
Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief: Welcome to Zen Metal
If bands were alcoholic beverages My Silent Wake’s latest outing Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief would be a fine vintage of red: subtle, yet full bodied with a woody/smoky aftertaste, the grapes having been specifically picked from a glorious vineyard somewhere in the Tuscany region.
Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief doesn’t need to Continue reading
Down and out to sea
Rich Brown wanted to draw a line under what was intended as a lockdown project, and having had enquiries about them, decided a CD—his first physical release—would do exactly that.
Revisiting old songs with a tweak here and there, plus adding three completely new, Down and out to sea contains ten tracks, all of which were recorded, mixed and mastered in Rich’s own home studio; a place that started as a duvet fort and has become something producing sound that one would be hard pressed to realise hadn’t been recorded in a real studio with all the engineering and mastering that goes with it.
Rich Brown: the new shining light of Folk?

Rich Brown’s EPs Pandemo and The Misinformation Age get their first listens with my customary no attention paid to any of the review package notes.

Brown genres as Folk, something that as a rule is only enjoyed by me when live in a pub and drunk enough to think I know the lyrics.
Continue readingIt’s not a style I know much about and what I’m hearing puts me in mind of a low-key Greenday or a smooth Pogues.