Fathoms

Each of them is an acclaimed solo artist in their own right, but together, The Furrow Collective continue to be one of the most refreshing interpreters of traditional song in the UK. Fathoms, their third album since they formed in 2013, rivals the excellence of At Our Next Meeting, and perhaps surpasses it to be their best album to date. Andy Bell once again produces them, and the vocals and song choices are fairly distributed among Lucy Farrell, Emily Portman, Rachel Newton and Alasdair Roberts.

There are some well-known ballads here, each one turned and shaped into fresh new figures dominating their own landscape – whether that's on Robert's ‘The Dark-Eyed Gypsies’, Portman's spectral ‘My Son David’, Newton's eerily gorgeous ‘Down by the Greenwoodside’ or Farrell's beautiful opener, ‘Davy Lowston’, which is drawn from Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick's 60s classic, ‘Byker Hill’.

Roberts contributes spare and atmospheric electric guitar to Newton's outstanding ‘The Cruel Grave’, as well as to ‘My Son David’, while Farrell's ‘As I Came in by Yon Castle Wall’ (from a poem by Robert Burns), begins unaccompanied, before a viola draws in, to create one of Fathom's deepest and most compelling moments.

Like Waterson:Carthy before them, The Furrow Collective bring freshness and new life to their material, and prove themselves superlative handlers and wranglers of the tradition.