MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
Folk album reviews with Steve Johnson: June 19, 2023
New releases from The Trials of Cato, Rachel Baiman and Megson
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Trials of Cato
Got Magog
Self-released
★★★★
SINCE their debut album Hide and Hair in 2018 this Welsh/English folk trio have been making waves on the folk scene winning the Best Album title in the 2019 BBC2 Radio Folk Awards.
Since then, the pandemic intervened as well as a line-up change with mandolin player Polly Bolton replacing Will Addison. Taking the title tune from the mythical giant of the Cambridgeshire chalk hills this new album is an intriguing mix of folklore, history and modern-day reflections of our current times.
Myth and legend are to the fore in When Black Shuck Roams and history in Boudicca AD 60 a paean to the Iceni queen. Ring of Roses is a modern-day plague song following the pandemic and there is also a raucous version of the 17th-century song Bedlam Boys.
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