Hold Fast

‘This record is about working hard in the face of adversity, focusing on the positive, questioning the canon and making an offering with hope and resilience for the future.’ So says Nicola Kearey – Stick in the Wheel’s singer and co-writer, with guitarist and producer Ian Carter – of this powerful, stark album that pits contemporary themes of hope and resistance to the forces of coercion, control and subjugation against the deep time of the folk traditional, pagan lore, and a vivid mix of rock, psych, medieval drone, folk-punk and more.

Recorded in the lead-up to COVID-19 at the duo’s own studio, the final mixes were done as lockdown set in, and released as post-pandemic adversity threatens the livelihoods of millions. Stick in the Wheel are a brilliantly powerful and dramatic force, with Kearey’s affecting vocals drawing out the full force of the words, slippery with 17th-century London slang on ‘Budg & Snudg’, drawing on Anglo Saxon texts for the sombre ‘A Tree Must Stand in the Earth’, from the Corpus Christi Carol for the sonically extraordinary ‘Gold So Red’, while ‘Nine Herbs Charm’ employs a tenth century spell to cast out poison. We need that now. A brilliant, powerful album of musical contrasts and lyrical depths, a major statement in the contemporary tradition.