DAVID CARROLL/BOLD REYNOLD
Free!
Having delighted in the previous album Too!, the arrival of Free!, the third album from David Carroll’s Bold Reynold assembly, was always going to be welcome. Happily, it does not disappoint. Luthier and musician Carroll’s project continues to revisit traditional material through imaginatively arranged folk-rock, with a thoroughly English character to the proceedings and a clear affection for the older musical roots from which these songs spring.
As before, the company gathered here is impressive, not least with Carroll’s bandmates from the rejuvenated Gryphon very much in evidence, alongside the now customary Fairport Convention connection in the shape of Chris Leslie. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Gryphon will not be surprised to hear familiar traditional songs offset by a vivid array of heritage instruments. Carroll himself contributes strings, pipes and voice; Brian Gulland brings reeds, keyboards and early-music colours; Graeme Taylor adds guitar, bass and production know-how; and Dave Oberlé supplies drums, percussion and further vocal weight.
What follows is a largely traditional set rooted in 70’s classic folk-rock, but treated with enough freshness, craft and good humour to avoid any sense of museum-piece nostalgia. The material may be durable, but these performances are bright-eyed, textured and full of movement.
First up “Sweet Jenny of the Moor” establishes the pattern immediately, the uilleann pipes giving the song an instant sense of place and antiquity. “Hanging Johnny” then changes tack from ballad to shanty, bringing a lift in tempo while still sounding entirely of a piece with the rest of the album. From there, Free! moves confidently through contrast and colour: “I Will Put My Ship in Order” offers instrumental delicacy before the vocal enters, while “Molly Bawn” is darker and more muscular, guitar and fiddle giving urgency to an unsettling narrative.
For all the individual virtuosity on show, the album’s greatest strength lies in the collective playing. Each track is given its own dramatic setting, and the ensemble arrangements add momentum and interest without overwhelming the songs. Credit is due, too, to the production, which allows the many voices within the band to be heard clearly without any one element dominating. Warmth and depth take precedence over polish for its own sake, allowing acoustic timbres, electric guitar, pipes, fiddle, dulcimer, crumhorns and cor anglais to co-exist almost organically.
Under normal circumstances, “The Parting Glass” might have made a fitting farewell, but Free! goes one step further with a heartfelt rendition of Eric Bogle’s “No Man’s Land”. Not yet ancient enough, nor obscure enough in origin, to be called traditional, the song has nevertheless attained classic status, and this extended, solemn, carefully layered version does it full justice.
After repeated listening, Free! emerges as a folk-rock album with a flavour entirely its own: traditional in source, adventurous in treatment and generous in spirit. With a nod to the personnel and to the pleasures of the band’s previous outing, it is the kind of record that would sound entirely at home drifting across a warm summer afternoon in an Oxfordshire field — though other fields, and other festivals, are of course available.
Free!