Words by Grey Malkin

The London based queer-folk sextet Goblin Band follow their bold and striking debut release, an interpretation of the traditional ‘The Prickle Holly Bush’ with both a new single, ‘Widecombe Fair’ and EP, the excellently titled ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’. Forming around a folk instrument shop, Hobgoblin, in central London, Goblin Band combine an appreciation of old Scots and English ballads with medieval and early song, as well as global folk music traditions, and align these more ancient aspects into place in the modern era, noting their relevance to current social issues, such as the cost-of-living crisis and the occupation of Palestine. Released via the stellar Broadside Hacks label (who also claim the splendidly unsettling Milkweed and excellent The New Eves on their roster), Goblin Band, alongside Shovel Dance Collective, are forefront amongst a new wave of weird folk emerging from the fields and cities with an inherently strong sense of social responsibility and purpose. No less than Martin Carthy, after watching them perform, was moved to comment, ‘They can play and they can sing and they’re fearless. When I saw Goblin Band singing recently, I just thought, “Why didn’t I think of that…?’

The EP opens with the darkly evocative ‘Black Nag’, an instrumental work from John Playford’s ‘The English Dancing Master’ (1651), with violin keening above a drone that sounds lifted from the earth itself. A stately processive and percussive beat leads the swirling melody onwards into a piece of genuine, melancholic beauty.

Next, ‘The Prickle Holly Bush’, a traditional Child Ballad sometimes otherwise known as ‘Gallow’s Pole’ or ‘The Maid Freed From The Gallows’, focuses on a condemned individual waiting and wishing to be set free by the arrival of their lover with the requisite and much needed gold and silver, and, in the band’s own words,  sees the themes of ‘estrangement, chosen family and hope in the face of societies’ structures of brutality’ aligned to ‘the lens of queer experience in 21^st century England’. Stirring and pleasingly wild and ragged, with its stop/start call and response structure, this is exactly where modern folk should be, both passionately invigorated and nakedly human and real, free of artificial pretence. Rowan Gatherer and Gwenna Harman’s vocals merit special mention, lifting the piece to new heights of emotive power and impact.

‘The Brisk Lad’ follows, a tale of breaking the law in order to survive and feed your family, something that resonates deeply in the age of austerity and late-stage capitalism here in these isles, a point keenly made by the band. Yearning and wracked, it enters on a bed of woodwind and concertina, Rowan Gatherer’s performance almost Brechtian in its embodied and dramatic recital, a truly bewitching performance.

A variant on the 18th century ‘Birds In The Spring’ follows, the sound of birdsong and violin drones providing a deceptively simple but heartrending foundation for Gatherer and Harman’s gentle and moving harmonising. Alice Beadle’s violin takes flight mid-song, and is stunning in its ability to conjure the image of wings and flutter, segueing the piece into ‘May Morning Dew’, a song of occupied Ireland, where the resonance to the current situation in Palestine is recognised by the ensemble. Heartbreakingly stark and impassioned, the piece deliberately ebbs and flows, gathering intent and poignancy. The West Country ‘Turmut Hoer’ is a violin and vocal jig, the band stealing this old local song back to return it to its original intentions, of a proud working-class song, one that has been taken and abused over the years by both the army and (alarmingly) Tory MPs.

The EP closes with the lead single ‘Widecombe Fair’, a ghost song relating a story about a horse ridden to death, and the protagonists’ spirits haunting the moors thereafter. Rousing and with a real sense of a collective at work, this is an interpretation that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck and echo through your head long after the song has finished.

In short, ‘Come Slack Your Horse!’ is one of the most magnificent things this listener has heard in a long, long time. Folk music isn’t just safe in Goblin Band’s hands, it thrives, takes new and old shapes alike, and is in thrillingly healthy form. Whatever they do next, be on board.

‘Come Slack Your Horse!’ was released on cassette, CD and download at goblinbanduk.bandcamp.com on May 1^st.