As if the great unwashed masses hadn’t already been punished enough by the ‘nu-folk’ onslaught, along canters another troupe of ‘toiling the fields’ earnest atavists.
Not content to warble away in their own right, a litany of, already, well-established artists have felt the need to form a sort of folk ‘super group’, with members plucked from a glut of ‘talent’, including Peggy Sue, Laura Marling, Sons of Noel and Adrian, Alessi’s Ark and Eyes & No Eyes.
A call-to-arms…well another excuse to weep openly under the sycamore (or Willow) tree, The Mariner’s Children obviously feel there’s yet more to be squeezed from pastoral wild wooded vistas and Daphne duMaurier imbued coastal tales of tumultuous torment.
More or less centred on the balladeer groups’ songwriter, Benedict Rubinstein, whose meditative maladies allude to death and the conquering erosion of time, each of the forlorn songs is performed with purposeful, assiduous care. A familiar movement of plucked, picked, twanged and bowed instrumentation seeps into the veiled landscape that prompts a certain solace, but also rises to anthemic levels. There’s no doubt they mean well and you can’t knock the musicianship, yet rather they fall short of reaching the heights of the Arcade Fire and Pentangle (a group they very much wish to replicate), and offer nothing new.
Of course it’s bound to be a resounding success, despite my lukewarm response.
Released 25th February 2013
[Rating:3]
