GALLEY BEGGAR

While the sources remain traditional or traditionally based, and, while violin continues to be a go to instrument, it is deployed more atmospherically than to carry a tune. Heavy electric guitars and percussion, along with Maria O'Donnell's trance-like vocals, impart a doom-laden, Gothic suspense to many of the tracks, one into which the entire band seems vested. This contrasts with prior releases that tried too hard to achieve an artificial balance.

The opening cut "Salome" is possibly the most authoritative of all, with O'Donnell singing as if under a 500 year old spell, and a 3 minute coda that begins with eerie fiddle and textured guitar and builds up to a feverish crescendo before the intro is revisited. Just to reiterate their commitment, "Four Birds" are of the same feather, adding in a foreboding lead guitar solo. Other highlights are the more acoustically based but just as haunting "The Lake" and "Lorelei". It's hard to believe they could be the 10,000th group to tackle "Let no Man Steal Your Thyme" and yet add to the lexicon, but that they have, both in the sung parts and the outlandishly LED ZEP like instrumental coda.

Bravo to GALLEY BEGGAR for this near manifesto for prog folk in 2017. "Heathen Hymns" probably won't get you into heaven, but it might make a believer out of you.

I need to make reparations for ever saying that GALLEY BEGGAR was trending in the TREES direction with each release. I had another cursed listen to the primordial sludge fest that is "On the Shore", and, if any point of comparison is possible, it is in how GALLEY BEGGAR has deftly sidestepped the busy work that was TREES' stock in trade, and that they do cover that band's "Geordie" oh so much more succinctly, with the one lead guitar running circles around the feuding twins of that long ago release. Maria O'Donnell's voice is more emotive and dynamic than Celia Humphries', while every bit the technical equal.

All that said, and notwithstanding the shining fiddling of "Adam and Eve" which compensates for its shockingly misogynist lyrics, the sweetly uplifting MERLIN BIRD like "Sanctuary Song", and the stop-me-in-my-tracks beauty of MR FOX-like closer "Deliver Him", this is a downbeat affair that is not the better for it. Particularly the 9 minute "Pay my Body Home" is as moribund as the most bloated JETHRO TULL epic, and until GALLEY BEGGAR can deliver sadness with a smile - see the STEELEYE SPAN classics for the ultimate guide - they will remain just shy of the 4 star hump. Too bad, so sad.

The album opens well with "Willow Tree" which borrows a bit from early CLANNAD in meter and gentility until the lead guitar bust out for the last couple of minutes, dialing up the urgency. Several other traditional oriented pieces are not only well chosen but, most importantly, arranged in a manner that pays respects to prior standards while establishing their own brand in the lexicon. "Two Magicians" will be difficult to displace from your musical memory, and, while it can't quite approach the perfection of the IAN ANDERSON-produced STEELEYE version, it's nonetheless a triumphantly told tale of conflict, and ultimately, loss. "Nottamun Town" is wisely most faithful to that of FAIRPORT which was one of that band's best ever performances, and, while "John Barleycorn" is revved up in comparison to TRAFFIC's standard, it's far rewarding than the STEELEYE version. They even manage the unthinkable, a chorus that does little more than chant the title a few times and somehow augments the impact of this pre pre pre prohibition treatise.

Once again, though, it's an "R" song that snatches the prize, the energetic "Rendall", with a near a capella chorus of exquisite male and female harmonies, that shifts away from the narrative of the verses; glistening mandolin bridges, and finally an accomplished lead guitar outro over bubbling percussions like something out of early HORSLIPs.

While "Lady Grey", "Hymn to Pan", and "Birds and Fishes" all occasionally approach the above standards, overall they seem less stimulating and dynamic, while "Daverne Lamb" is in the vein of "Matty Groves" or even "Byard's Leap" by DECAMERON off their debut, but lacking their epic qualities. As a result, the heavier instrumental breaks don't sprout organically from the roots of these song, instead spread at the end like a 5th coat of paint in a different color.

While about half the tracks point the way to an ever more exultant future, this album lacks the consistency and balance to tip the scales into the "excellent" zone. Still, I recommend it to most fans of the above bands. 3.5 stars it is, rounded down.

"Reformation House" is the first of their efforts, self produced and released, with a slapdash blend of the traditional, the covered, and the original. The requisite tales of often supernatural woe, offering female vocals (Francis Tye) generally backed by clean mandolin, acoustic guitar, and violin, evoke the distant works of FAIRPORT CONVENTION, STEELEYE SPAN, and PENTANGLE, in a format far tighter than any of those bands ever were, and perhaps wanted to be. This tightness is as much in the hips and lips as in the ensemble interactions, and, while only the repetitive "Sir Richard" and the lethargic "farewell Nancy" really fall short, I should also add that only the traditional ballad "The Outlandish Knight", with its marvelous fiddle work particularly in the coda; the haunting SALLY OLDFIELD like "Rowan", with its glorious chorus and flutes; and the urgent and more relatively contemporary "Arise Arise!" which closes the disk really step up and announce that GALLEY BEGGAR is here and now, and more just than another form of tribute band.

While at this stage GALLEY BEGGAR has not found its unique voice, "Reformation House" is a more than competent debut from an embryonic lineup that nonetheless establishes the group's key credentials and keeps them out of the reformatory long enough to fight another day.