We continue with our Best Albums of 2014, as mentioned before these are not listed in any order of merit.
Enjoy
Smoke Fairies – Smoke Fairies
Full Review by Mike Davies
They’re Fairies, Jim, but not as we know them. After almost calling it a day in a self-doubt crisis following their second album and a continued lack of commercial success to match the critical acclaim, the Smoke Fairies: Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire took stock, finally deciding to press on, throwing out the bathwater but holding on to the baby.
Nathaniel Rateliff – Falling Faster Than You Can Run
Read full review by Simon Holland
At his recent London shows at The Shackelwell Arms and The Islington, Nathaniel Rateliff proved that all he needs is a single acoustic guitar and a stand and deliver attitude to hold an audience in rapt attention. His voice, his phrasing and his songs have a way of hitting the mark and where others can dazzle with a flurry of finger style, simple rhythmic strumming seems to be all that Nathaniel requires. It’s probably true to say that it’s how most of his songs take shape and they are simply being taken back to the moment of their birth. Listening to Falling Faster Than You Can Run, you can hear it there too and the album’s core is the same basic blend of guitar and voice. But that framework is taken to another level with subtle arrangements that add drama to Nathaniel’s philosophical and emotional vignettes.
Beverley Martyn – The Phoenix And The Turtle
Read full review by Helen Gregory
Beverley has described The Phoenix and the Turtle as a very personal album which “still has that in-a-room feel – it sounds like an old style analogue record”. This is a perceptive description which applies to not only the sound of the album but also its content. The nine songs here have been carefully selected from throughout her career and make the ideal showcase for her talents as a musician and a writer, and it’s a tribute to the combined skills and empathy of Beverley and guitarist and producer Mark Pavey that they’ve been able to mesh a wide-ranging collection of material into a cohesive whole. Welcome back, Beverley, you’ve been away too long.
Martin Green – Crows’ Bones
Read full review by Simon Holland
Having been fortunate enough to see the staging of Crows’ Bones at St. Leonards church in Shoreditch (live review), the setting and timing, just a week before Christmas, added considerably to the performance. It was a magical if spooky night, with Inge Thomson and Becky Unthank’s voices, Martin Green’s accordion and Niklas Roswall’s nyckelharpa, augmented by sundry props and effects, creating an otherworldly and at times, somewhat unsettling atmosphere. But then this is work themed on the supernatural and like the best ghost stories, the chills are an essential ingredient in creating the thrills. In that sense it’s a pleasure to report that the tingle also translates to the CD, which even shorn of the visual impact, the immediacy of the performance and the evening’s spectacular, dark, mid-winter setting.
Jess Morgan – Langa Langa
Read full review by Alfred Archer
Langa Langa is an album that everyone with a love for gentle Americana should listen to. More importantly, though, this marks the emergence of a singer with a unique style for whom big things should be expected. There’s an appealing timelessness to these songs that demonstrates Morgan’s willingness to stay true to her musical approach regardless of current musical fads. As Morgan sings in Modern World “Me I’m an old soul/ I don’t think I belong in your modern world.” Perhaps she is right; but the modern world is certainly richer for her presence.
Elephant Revival – These Changing Skies
’d venture that Elephant Revival are a good looking band. In saying that I’m not suggesting any sort of beauty pageant line up of chiselled jaws and glamour pusses – handsome as they may be individually – but together on stage with percussionist Bonnie Paine as the central figure, they look like a band set to make beautiful music. It’s a combination of instruments, banjo guitar, double bass and fiddle, but also the array of vocal mics, with each of the band contributing to the fulsome harmonies, that suggests the making of a dynamic sound. And boy do they deliver? On stage Bonnie acts as both a visual and musical fulcrum around which the rest of the band rotate, readily swapping instruments, with each taking their lead. It makes for a great show and is also something that happily translates very well onto the CD These Changing Skies.
Mishaped Pearls – Thamesis
Read full review by Neil McFadyen
It’s clear that Mishaped Pearls are as dexterous as anyone can be at blending the disparate influences they’ve brought to the studio from the worlds of folk, classical and modern music and story. Thamesis is the highly polished, exquisitely crafted end product that originated from a rich vein of song, story and talent. In tapping that vein, Mishaped Pearls have provided their audience with a body of work that not only celebrates its origins, it confirms the exceptional skills of its creators and earns them a place among those who make a significant contribution to the rich diversity of music we treasure.
Blair Dunlop – House Of Jacks
Read full review by Simon Holland
Having already wowed fans and critics alike with his debut and also delivered a rumbustious rebooting of folk-rock with the Albion Band, Blair Dunlop deals the ace up his sleeve with the new album House Of Jacks, due for release next Monday (26th May). Although folk music may be in his DNA, it takes more than a famous folk father to make records this good and this lyrically profound. With Mark Hutchinson once again producing, Blair has gathered a great band to expand his sound and delivered a sonic feast, so jammed full of ideas, it bellies his tender years. It surely trumps his debut.
Bridie Jackson and The Arbour – New Skin
Read full review by Mike Davies
I was blown away by Bitter Lullabies last year’s debut album from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne based Bridie Jackson and The Arbour, its bracing originality bringing a whole new sound to the folk music genre while yet drawing on firmly embedded traditions. Seeing them live was an equally exhilarating experience, so news of their sophomore album New Skin in such a short space of time was welcomed with eager anticipation….
If you need convenient labels, then perhaps a cocktail of the early Smoke Fairies albums, Les Mysteres des Voix Bulgares and Mahalia Jackson might be a convenient reference, but really they have a pigeonhole all to themselves.
Curtis Eller’s American Circus – How to Make It in Hollywood
Read full review by Paul Woodgate
Hard though it is, I try not to get hung up on genre, but by the end of this review I’m going to have to invent a new one and issue patent on behalf of Curtis Eller and his American Circus, because I can (almost) guarantee you won’t have heard anything like this before. What you have here is quality artistry with loose-limbed, plug-in and play theatrical improvisation that name checks a Sgt. Pepper’s menagerie of 19th and 20th century American celebrities and politicians on its way to completely bowling you over. I’d need another review to list out the names you’ll hear, but there’s no danger of the album becoming land-locked in 2014 as most of them are dead and gone.
In just under 40 minutes Eller and the Circus take your business class ticket to Glastonbury, rip it up, and replace it with steerage seats to voodoo-nights in New Orleans’ French Quarter. It’s a trip you should take.
Hillary Reynolds Band – The Miles Before Us
Read the full review here by Simon Holland
The Hillary Reynolds Band may be a new name to our UK and European audience, but arrive on the back of a rapidly rising stock in the USA. The Boston based quintet have just released their second full album, The Miles Before Us, to capitalise on a growing profile on the live circuit around America that includes a number of high profile festival appearances. The gathering momentum is confirmed by the steady ramping up of action in the blogosphere and YouTube as new found fans are quick to voice their enthusiasm with a murmur of, “Pass it on.”
Police Dog Hogan – Westward Ho!
Read full review by Mike Davies
Essentially built to be performed, the songs aren’t the stuff of classics, but they’re delivered with conviction and played with impeccable prowess. With an average age of over 40 and solid day jobs, they’re not chasing music business fame and fortune, but they can be assured of full houses and appreciative audiences, from festival field to village hall.
Ewan McLennan – Stories Still Untold
Read full review by Simon Holland
Ewan McLennan is someone that FRUK has been following since he first emerged on the scene in 2010. He’s proved consistently impressive, scooping a couple of key awards over the course of his first two albums for Fellside Records. Each of Ewan’s albums has built around a keen social conscience and revisiting themes that put the common man and folksong to the fore, allied with some stunning musicianship and a sublime delivery that positions him amongst the genre’s musical elite. With the release of Stories Still Untold he’s rewritten the rule book again, to breathtaking effect. This is a absolutely stunning record that for any fan of folk music is in the ‘must own’ category. Just be warned hearts will be broken and tears will be shed, but the sorrows are oh so sweet and the greatest comes when the final note is struck.
Apple of My Eye – Seven Tides
Read full review by Simon Holland
Apple Of My Eye are a band that FRUK have been following for a couple of years and more now. It’s heartening therefore to report that their early promise has crystallised perfectly into the salty tales of Seven Tides, their imminent second album. It’s a work of considerable wit and imagination, built on their core strengths, blending some very fine playing with the exceptional use of their massed voices, to create something totally unique, quite unlike anything else you’ll hear this year. It is of course also beautifully arranged and recorded, put together with such skill that everything seems so perfectly in its place. Indeed you could say, “All is shipshape and Bristol fashion.”
Luke Daniels – What’s Here What’s Gone
Read full review by Simon Holland
Whilst the emergence of Luke Daniels as a singer songwriter may have caught some flat footed, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a total surprise. He may well have staked a claim to fame as a melodeon player of considerable repute, with the likes of Ian Anderson, De Dannan, as part of the Riverdance band and as a mainstay in Cara Dillon’s combo, but along the way he has recorded several albums under his own name and in tandem with others. It all points towards a wellspring of creativity that you could argue was always heading towards What’s Here What’s Gone. While the clues are there, however, the really pleasant surprise is what a bold and accomplished album this is, great songs, a sumptuous sound, containing at its heart a burgeoning philosophy and credo, which adds a whole other level at which this record works.
Shakey Graves – And The War Came
Read full review by Paul Woodgate
Shakey Graves. Not the latest in American funeral options – ‘Guaranteed to roll with the earthquakes, contents remain safe!’ – but Alejandro Rose-Garcia, a Lone Star songwriter whose October 7 release And The War Came is causing all manner of traditionalists in the States to sit up and listen. This boy doesn’t so much stand on ceremony as jump up and down on him until it submits, his hybrid Blues and Country squall whipping in from various shores and uprooting whatever’s in its path.
The Magic Lantern – Love of Too Much Living
Read full review by Thomas Blake
Lyrically, Doe is concerned with presenting simple ideas in intelligent ways. ‘Why can’t we all get along, as simple as that sounds?’ he enquires in the piano-led Air At The Top, discussing life’s Pyrrhic victories before coming to a conclusion full of optimism, while on the a cappella 28 Years Old he documents a transitional phase of his life with unabashed honesty, the openness of the sentiment made all the clearer by the lack of instrumentation. The acoustic instrumental Alice is an arresting counterpoint, showcasing Doe’s talent for appropriating and melding musical styles, in this case folk and classical guitar. The playing on songs like Winter is altogether simpler, giving Doe the opportunity to indulge in those Buckleyesque vocal flights, and on the jumpy, restless Scant Piece Of Mind guitar and piano come together for the first time as the song climbs and spirals.
Love Of Too Much Living takes its title from poem by Victorian decadent Algernon Swinburne, who later became a noted critic and pillar of respectability. It is a wise choice for an album whose songs sit astride the fathomless land between maturity and naivety, and whose lyrics describe that land with profound directness.
The Willows – Amidst Fiery Skies
Read full review by Helen Gregory
Steeped in the UK folk tradition but with a clear love of Americana, Amidst Fiery Skies , the second record by Cambridge-based quintet The Willows builds on the groundwork of ideas and sounds that underpinned last year’s debut Beneath Our Humble Soil to come up with an album which effortlessly holds its own against some very stiff competition from the current crop of contemporary UK folk musicians…Amidst Fiery Skies is a very accomplished and confident sounding album which suggests that the rise to prominence of The Willows is richly deserved and it points to a bright future for the band.
Goodnight Lenin – In The Fullness of Time
Read full review by Mike Davies
I’ve already played this album more times than any other this year and it sounds ever more glorious with each listen. It’s taken a while to surface and there’s a danger it may get overlooked in the seasonal flurry, but, with a full tour in March/April to coincide with a second single release, music of such luminescence won’t remain hidden for long.
Sean Rowe – Madman
Read full review by Roy Spencer
Madman is a fine demonstration of the ‘less is more’ maxim; a remarkably eclectic fourth album combining stripped down pop, folk and raw blues all loaded with extraordinary honesty and personal emotion and evident in Sean Rowe’s music as well as his song writing.
See all entries for our Best of 2014