‘Roving Blade’ is another new song that wanders up and down dale. It’s a lively modern interpretation of a traditional song about endless work and little play. Another highlight was the a cappella rendition of ‘Poor Old Horse’ which featured the band’s outstanding backing vocals. The setlist was masterful covering new and older songs with the common theme of social topics that are so relevant today. The band’s performance was memorable and enthusiastically received. If the band appears in your neck of the woods, go see, whatever your age. I promise you a night to remember.

Setlist

Me N Becky
Common Ground
Jail Song
All The Things
Hasp
Follow Them True*
The Blacksmith
Poor Old Man
Abbots Bromley Horn Dance*
Over Again*
100,000 Years*
Champion
White Copper Alley*
Cruel Ship’s Captain
Weaving Song*
Roving Blade*
Witch Bottle
Bedlam
Seven Gypsies
Wishing Well

Poor Old Horse*

* From The New Album

Biography

East London five-piece folk band Stick In The Wheel are headed by singer Nicola Kearey, and guitarist/producer Ian Carter. Their debut From Here(2015) was Roots magazine ‘Album of the Year’ and a MOJO ‘Folk Album of the Year’, with four BBC Folk Award nominations since their inception in 2013. Known for Kearey’s fierce, authentic delivery, this is culturally and politically switched on music with its roots firmly embedded in the genre’s traditional, working-class heritage. The group have been widely commended for their timely appraisal of English Folk, and their skill in telling stories through song that reconnect modern audiences to the past – drawing unexpected parallels between then and now.

Speaking of the lead track Kearey said:

“Like the album that it opens, ‘Over Again’ is about a new start, how things come in cycles, rebirth, being stuck in a loop, how you can become trapped, bound by your own rituals, how you need hope to break out of them, but that it has to come from within. We wrote an early version when Rachel Thomas Davies was in the band, then she left, and we left it. Then Ian had a dream one night where he’d mixed the vocals from the ‘Over Again’ with one of the new backing tracks that were kicking around for this album. It just worked.”

Their second album, FOLLOW THEM TRUE, was released on 26 January 2018. The songs within examine rituals and cycles, our inherent power to change ourselves and the world around us, the past repeating itself, ghosts and death, land and place, thieves and beggars. It continues to question the notion of what folk music is, and what it means in 2018. The new album expands the radical sound of their debut to include electronic and found sounds, using a broader sonic palette to create a greater depth full of layers and meaning, yet at the same time remaining totally connected with the tradition.

http://www.stickinthewheel.com/