Wilson & Swarbrick
Album: Lion Rampant
Label: Shirty
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.folkicons.co.uk/swarb.com

When Dave Swarbrick presses an album into your hand and says it's one of the best things he's ever done, you'd be a fool not to stick it on the cd player the moment you get home and from there the process of recognising that the word of the fiddle/mandolin maestro is not to be doubted is but a play away.

The Wilson of the duo is Dr. Jason Wilson, a Canadian singer-songwriter with a predilection for combining reggae with other traditional music forms to create a sound that really does create a fusion of styles and give his works a distinctive edge. I say duo, but the reality is "Lion Rampant" is recorded by a core group of six musicians with guest appearances from the likes of The Bevvy Sisters, Peggy Seeger, Martin Carthy and John Kirkpatrick, to name a few.

I have to say the song selection on this album has been excellent, drawing mainly on the folk tradition, both historic and contemporary and adding a few from the reggae world bring the likes of Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson into a world of Bob Marley and Rabbie Burns, with tow particular sets of songs/tunes standing out, "Why Must I Plead/Jamaica" and the extraordinary "Red Rose Medley" which fuses, "My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose" with "No Woman No Cry".

That said for all the songs on the album, the one that stands above the rest, for me at least, is the anti-sectarian punk anthem, "Among Proddy Dogs And Papes" a song that retains as much power as it held when it first saw the light of day back in the nineties.

In a similar vein, at least as far as retaining power goes is the traditional song "War Down A Monkland" that by a quirk of fate became a Jamaican rebel song and which was documented as such back in 1907.

As you might tell from the title, there is a heavy Scots influence on "Lion Rampant " with a number of songs drawn from that part of the country and who knows maybe there is even a subconscious link to Scotland's own disastrous dabbling in the Caribbean region with the ill-fated Darien expedition which lead to the whole Parcel Of Rogues incident. Either way Swarbs was not far of in his description, "Lion Rampant" from Wilson & Swarbrick is an exceptional album.

Neil King