Old English folk music has gone through something of a popular resurgence in recent years helped by the success of artists like Kate Rusby, Cara Dillon and Liza Carthy. Brass Monkey is a band made up of some venerable bad boys in the form of Martin Carthy (guitar, mandolin, five-string banjo, vocals), Roger WilliamsJohn Kirkpatrick (button accordion, anglo concertinas, and vocals), Martin Brinsford (drums, tambourine, cymbal, shaker, berimbau, reco reco, mouth-organs, saxophone), and Howard Evans (trumpets and flugelhorne). Proving there’s life in the old dog yet, these guys fairly blast their way through ancient tracks like the opening, rollicking The Swinton May Song. Now while this type of music leaves me cold I have to admit that my feet were tapping uncontrollably while listening to this particular track. Carthy is in excellent voice while the proliferation of instruments (many of which I have never heard of before) are played with amazing gusto.

On reading the album sleeve notes I learned that some of the songs (Maiden Lane, New Whitehall, Dick’s Maggots and Queens Birthday) date back to the 17th and 18th century. And they sound like it, but Brass Monkey has managed to inject the sort of life into the music that may well have existed back then. While the traditional style vocals make an important contribution it’s the instruments that play the major role in bringing this music back to life. I would conclude that if you are a fan of old English folk music, you will love this wonderfully produced record. Oh hell, there go my feet again…

4/5