On their third album, Trembling Bells explore traditional folk themes such as boozing, loneliness, landscape, mystical creatures and regret, with more modern and eclectic sounds. Their joyous approach to playing and singing is hypnotic and passionate with enough humor and raw edges to steer well clear of being over-sentimental.
Trembling Bells’ debut release contained my favorite song of 2009, the sorrowful yet uplifting dirge "Willows of Carbeth." I consciously avoided their second album (lest it somehow conspire to ruin my love for that one song) but am happy to report the group is in good form for The Constant Pageant. The passion is evident from the first piece "Just As The Rainbow" which opens with guitar wailing like bagpipes on heat and the group keeping up an impressive, slow, bombastic pace. Enter the possessed floral gargle that is the voice of Lucretia Blackwell, oft wrongly compared to that of Sandy Denny. While both can conjure a haunting loneliness Blackwell’s is more unpredictable, less pure sounding, and more liable to trilling leaps and guttural bounds. Her adventurously risky singing suits Trembling Bells to a tee since the group repeatedly shift gears and introduce somewhat unconventional instruments onto the solid traditional folk upon which their music is based. "Where Do I Go From You," for instance, includes horns, piano and wild fuzzy guitar but Blackwell’s voice ensures the essential folk aspect can’t be missed, even when she goes into some kind of ecstatic overload repeating the title during the fade-out section.
For contrast, drummer Alex Neilson also sings, both alone and, to fine effect, in harmony with Blackwell. He has featured in a number of other projects including Scatter and Directing Hand but his love of folk music is clearly blood-deep. Neilson is from Yorkshire (from whence came such bastions of folk music as Martin Carthy and the Waterson family) and lovely references to the county, and to other places in England, abound. "Goathland" not only brings to mind the Half Man Half Biscuit song "We built this village on a Trad. Arr. tune" but also name-checks several locations, including itself and Robin Hood’s bay. The later is home (amongst other things) to The Pigsty, one of the most memorable smaller properties restored and available for holiday rental by the non-profit conservation group Landmark Trust.
Trembling Bells show themselves to be unafraid to make a stirring noise and to quote or borrow from 1960s pop music and 1970s progressive rock. They balance deep folk tradition (even the use of brass nods to the tradition of bands attached to the coal mines) with an unabashed love for the sheer power of electric instruments. I can't help but feel that the Watersons themselves might approve. Certainly Mike Heron (of The Incredible String Band) does, if recent joint concerts are any guide. Indeed, the only thing that has me brassed off about this album is the line "wasted my days in watering holes," because the idea that time spent in a good pub could ever be considered a waste, is nonsense to an Englishman.
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