Reviews

Artist:The Rolling Folk
Album: East Of Elsewhere
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://therollingfolk.bandcamp.com/album/east-of-elsewhere

The Rolling `Folk's "East Of Elsewhere" is a new album from the Merry Hell Family, due for release on 1st March, which happens to be a Bandcamp Friday. That means that when you spend your tenner, all your money bar the PayPal percentage will go to the foursome who created it.

Fronted by the wonderfully ebullient Virginia Kettle on vocals and acoustic guitar, The Rolling Folk's other three members are John Kettle (guitars, production), Mark Woolley (whistles, percussion), and Chris Lee (bass, mandolin). The album is also graced by 'fiddlers three': Egan Stonier ("Winter In Your Heart", "Compass"), Neil McCartney ("Steady As A Rock"), and Clare 'Fluff' Smith ("Hurricane Blue", "Sailing On The Inside", "Lost In You", and "Tomorrow Is Not Promised").

The crew now having been thoroughly introduced, "East OF Elsewhere" is a vehicle for Virginia, with two solo albums already under her belt, to step forth once more with her own writing. The album title comes from those waking "where on earth am I?" moments after years of touring and rarely getting to sleep in her own bed. The songs are 'from the whole wide world to the intimacy of kitchen sink dramas', and they will resonate with each and every one of us.

In true Merry Hell fashion, "Hurricane Blue" gives you the first singalong of this engaging album, with one of those choruses that will earworm its way into your psyche and re-emerge while you're sitting on a bus, distract you in important meetings, and accompany you when you're digging the garden (it did that while I was cutting turf yesterday!). "Lost In You" is a foot-tapping country folk-rocker of a song. It's a song that reminds us to remember ourselves, give ourselves our own time "give me a mirror to look me in the eye, 'cos I've been lost in you".

The pace slows with the album's single "Trouble", which is also one of the three songs on the album that are precisely 4 minutes in length. Oddly, it feels shorter, and it's one of those songs that you want to have on repeat listen. It tells 'everything you need to know about its writer - whatever she does, wherever she goes, it will always find her'.

"Sailing On The Inside" references places in North West England from Virginia's upbringing in and around Chester, and this is probably my consistent favourite song on the album. It has a Fairport feel to it and continues the theme of finding yourself. "Kiss On The Wind" is simply beautiful, and includes some powerful lyrical moments: "If love was a waltz, I'd feel free to follow the hand that is leading me across the floor".

"Winter In Your Heart" is a song that takes many of us to a place we know well: "I loved you, loved you, loved you to distraction, though the warning signs were flashing from the start / Blues was the colour of the light behind you eyes, it was always winter in your heart". The more you listen to this album, the more you realise that its core strength lies in its very fine lyrical content.

The opening to "Compass" feels darker than most of the songs on "East Of Elsewhere", yet it's a song of inclusion, with the song pointing to the fact that loneliness is something we all experience "millions of people just like me", and that wherever we are in the world, whatever our background, we are all human beings on the same planet.

The more reflective "Lighter Shade Of Blue" is a lovely song, about the people in life who are always there to help you through darker times, and leads nicely into "Steady As A Rock", because we all need 'rocks' in our lives. This is another song that will keep coming back at you, with a hint of Doo-wop in the chorus.

The final song "Tomorrow Is Not Promised" is the album's shortest, and it's nice to close an album with a love song. The fiddle in this song reminded me of Pete Sage's sound from the '70s band Wally. A beautiful ending to a very fine, and exceptionally well-produced album.

As well as being an album that is wholly worthy of critical acclaim, this is an album that insisted on being reviewed. Last night as I watched the TV News, it fell off the couch next to me three times - it may actually have jumped - craving the attention it deserves! Described by Folk North West Magazine as "the best thing to happen to British Folk for years", this is Virginia Kettle loud and clear, acutely observational, sensitive and empathetic, and always managing to find light in the darkest of corners.

John Reed

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