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Three years ago, the band's percussionist and songwriter, Alex Neilson, told Stylus magazine that he fantasised about "doing with British traditional music what Albert Ayler did with the (jazz) of his culture". Hence, I Took to You (Like Christ to Wood) has a colliery-band feel reminiscent of Martin Carthy's Brass Monkey, a 1970s folk-rock siren up front in the shape of the vocalist Lavinia Blackwall, and a noise-suffused dervish-whirl coda to blow your clogs off. Willows of Carbeth melts like vintage Sandy Denny, but has a loose-limbed, chaotic undercurrent beyond the formality of most folk music. Trembling Bells forcibly mate incompatible musical species; but, God help them, the staggering, slavering, stumbling creature they have spawned is a handsome mongrel.
Honest Jon's HJRCD43