GentleFolk
Album: Into The Greenwood
Label: Dharma
Tracks: 18
Website: http://www.gentlefolkband.com

Back in the summer of 2014, a group of South East Londoners met at one of those fabled The Goose Is Out singarounds in Nunhead and fairly promptly formed GentleFolk, a band which the now-illustrious Stick In The Wheel have since described as "a psychedelic folk Steely Dan" (ha! those guys should know better - or else they know too much!).

So here's the gen: GentleFolk is based around songwriter/singer/storyteller Nigel Hoyle (better known as Nigel Of Bermondsey, apparently), and their debut CD is a collection of the (=Nigel's) songs and tales of the old woods of the south of England. These tales run in a continuous sequence, giving the whole album the feel of a concept album of sorts, at times rather akin to Magna Carta's Seasons perhaps; it's certainly a rather quaint, old-fashioned kind of record in that respect, and the sections of spoken word don't always convince when the songs in between are strong enough to stand up on their own.

The individual tales can invoke a sense of innocent wonder, without necessarily delving too deep into their darker aspects; one gets the feeling at times that Nigel's craft is still at a developmental stage, and not quite ready for the wider stage that group performance encompasses. In that respect, songs like The Hidden People resemble those mid-phase ISB stage tryouts that didn't make it onto record - worthy and intermittently catchy, but sometimes lacking that final degree of focus and thus not quite hanging together.

Instrumentally, GentleFolk provide a likeable variety within a cautiously expansive canvas, the four-piece (Nigel, with Elizabeth Forrester, Sarah Lloyd and Ian Kennedy) between them playing guitar, fiddle, cello, flute, recorder, drum and shruti box. Into The Greenwood is a well-considered debut, with some fascinating source material drawn from local legends. I like it a lot, for it surely has continuity of vision and energy aplenty, and is genuinely and gently joyous in its "wild and free" spirit. Even so, it could still be more of a case that "something impossible is overtaking" for next time round; and I'll be waiting too!

David Kidman