Lupen Crook
Album: British Folk Tales
Label: The Preservation Society
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.lupencrook.com

Dark and complex songwriting from the eccentric and never knowingly predictable Lupen Crook on his fifth album offering.

'British Folk Tales' features ten songs of various levels of accessibility, from the straightforward and musically simple 'Crumb Trails' to the cinematic epic 'If You Love Me Come The Morning'.

The 'folk' in the album title is a bit of a red herring, unless of course you count the brief appearance of a hurdy gurdy on track one.

At times it's John Otway meets Billy Bragg, and on the darker compositions there's more than a hint of Nick Cave and Morrissey. 'Note To Self' works very well as a nice simple country folk song, with just the glockenspiel and 12 string guitar giving support.

Lupen Crook has engineered an album of contrasting styles and structures, maybe too many to ensure a cohesive and attention grasping listening experience, but light and dark, simple and involved it is.

However, as the promo notes point out, Lupen is regarded as an 'uncompromising cult artist', so his dedicated niche band of followers will no doubt be suitably primed for this offering, as opposed to the casual listener who may find the album a tad more challenging to digest in one sitting.

Phil Carter