Reviewing Odette Michell’s debut album for the much-missed fRoots magazine back in 2019, I wrote that The Wildest Rose was “one of the stand-out debuts of 2019”. Lots of commentators expressed similar levels of enthusiasm and she soon found herself on many people’s ‘one to watch’ lists that year.
Since then, Michell has performed alongside the likes of Show of Hands, as well as opening for folk luminaries like Martin Carthy, Phil Beer, Reg Meuross and Ninebarrow amongst others. She’s also recently begun performing with Karen Pfeiffer and Daria Kulesh in a new trio formation: Michell, Pfeiffer & Kulesh. However, it’s been quite some wait for a follow-up solo album – but finally it’s here.
Comprising ten original songs, The Queen of the Lowlands features an impressive line-up of guest musicians, including Chris Leslie, Phil Beer, Lukas Drinkwater, Vicki Swann and Stu Hanna (who also produced); alongside additional vocal contributions from Daria Kulesh, Calum Gilligan and the duo, Ninebarrow.
Reviewing Michell’s debut album I noted she had a “knack for writing songs that could easily have been collected over a hundred years ago”. A similar approach is clearly evident on this latest album, as Michell herself acknowledges.
“My approach to songwriting is to try to be as authentic as possible while keeping a foothold in the folk tradition – it’s a balancing act but every song is personal to me at some level.”
Highlights include the gentle nature-themed opening track ‘The Woodlark and the Fieldfare’ with vocal contributions from the equally nature-loving Ninebarrow; the more contemporary-sounding but no less gorgeous ‘Hourglass’, dedicated to Michell’s father and sung as a duet with Callum Gilligan; and the jaunty fiddle-driven closing track ‘All The Bonny Ships’, written about Michell’s Polish grandparents who got separated during WW2 but were miraculously reunited in Britain at the end of the war.
Title track ‘The Queen of the Lowlands’, meanwhile, (which features some characteristically spell-binding fiddle from Fairport’s Chris Leslie) is not about Queen Wilhelmina, the former Dutch monarch, but rather the ship named after her that played a heroic role in the First World War, transporting US troops safely back home. It’s one of several nautical-themed songs on the album, hence the striking cover art.
Following her hugely-impressive debut album, here Odette Michell has gone on to deliver an absolutely stunning follow-up. Infused with her deep appreciation and obvious knowledge of traditional song, The Queen of the Lowlands is a beautiful album with gripping storytelling, crystal-clear vocals and first-class musicianship.
Guitarist, Joe Hodgson, hails from the village of Ballymagorry in Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland. His music, shaped by his upbringing during The Troubles, mirrors the fierce rain and winds of the Emerald Isle. I catch up with Joe to talk about his musical heroes, his solo career and the release of his new solo album, Fields of Redemption, which comes out on June 20th.
For my first question, let’s go right back to the beginning. When did you first pick up a guitar?
I picked up the first guitar after my cousins in Dublin played me some Rory Gallagher, you know? I think it was the Stage Struck album, which was him at his most rocky and stuff. And then I just was totally sold on the guitar. And then I actually got tickets to see Rory Gallagher and I was just totally blown away. And from that moment on, it’s all I ever wanted to do, you know?
Was that your first concert then, Rory Gallagher?
No, my first gig I ever went to was Thin Lizzy, I think on the Renegade tour.
That tour was my first gig as well, how weird!
Yeah, I saw them in Dublin and yeah, they were great, you know. Snowy White was with them at the time. It was brilliant. But it was definitely Rory Gallagher who was the was my main reason for playing guitar. And then after it became Gary Moore – when I first heard him. Those two were my biggest influences. Two Irish guys just coincidentally.
Two iconic and very expressive guitar players, so obviously some of that has embedded itself in you from an early age.
Oh God, yeah. I was out for a few beers last night with my wife, and the guy put on Rory Gallagher on the video screen. And he was absolutely incredible. Amazing showmanship. He never messed up. He never got out of tune, never out of time. Raw. And that was amazing, you know. Brilliant.
If you want to talk about sort of the music that’s influenced me when I was growing up… as I say, Rory, and then Gary was definitely my biggest single ever. I’d say he was one of the greatest players of all time. But I was also into – and I still listen to – all the older, the English guys. Like, obviously, Eric Clapton’s a huge influence on me. Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Peter Green. Those four are still, to this day… you don’t get any better than them! And I still go back and listen to Clapton and Beck quite regularly, you know?
But in the ‘80s, ‘90s, I was heavily influenced by all the American players, you know. Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee and all those great players. But I was also into other music. Stuff like ELO and some quite melodic music, which probably has helped define me. Melodically, it’s given me that sense, I like to think, that my influence isn’t just from the hard rock. It’s from that kind of more pop rock as well. Fleetwood Mac and stuff like that. I love listening to that.
I think that’s something that really shines through in your own music.
So, from those early days, you went on to play in a number of bands. That was over in England. Did you want to tell us about that?
Well, it was a catalogue of almost-made-it type bands, you know. The band I suppose that came closest to cracking it was a band called Rime. At the time we released an album back in the mid-2000s. And we were about to be signed up by a major promoter in America. And at the last minute, just as the CDs had been printed, the singer walked out of the band. A French guy. It was unbelievable luck, you know? And we replaced him, but it was never the same when you replace a singer. The guy in this booking agency in America, he loved the singer, you know? So, when you replace the singer, it’s always difficult.
But I was in lots of different bands over there. And the last band I was in before I left was a band called Good Guy Dies. I was with a female singer from Latvia, and we did some BBC stuff. BBC Radio Kent and local stuff in and around London. And we toured all over the country but, again, that was a weird one because my background is Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore, Led Zeppelin, all that. And her background was Tori Amos, Bjork. So, I thought it was a good idea to try and mix these, but it was like trying to mix oil and water, you know? So, it didn’t work in the end, I don’t think, musically. But I enjoyed playing that stuff and experimenting, you know?
And then you relocated back to Northern Ireland and released your debut solo album a few years later. Was that a conscious decision to move back to Ireland and launch a solo career, or did it just happen in the way sometimes things happen in life?
Yeah, the reason I came back here was that band Good Guy Dies broke up and I just wanted to get away from London for a while. Then my mum was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. So, I ended up back here and I nursed her in the last year of her life. She died here at home. I had no intention whatsoever of coming back here permanently but as the days went on, I thought I kind of like it here, you know. People talk to you here. It’s not like London, you know, and you go for a pint and people are going, “Hey Joe, how are you man? How you doing?” So, I felt just right at home again after a while. You couldn’t pay me now to go back to London, you know! I’m quite happy here.
Brilliant. I’m sorry to hear about your mum though. Although something very creative and very positive came out of a family tragedy.
Absolutely. It was always my dream to come back. This room where I’m in now, you can see all my guitars and stuff there. This is the room I learned to play guitar in. And I always had this sort of dream to come back here and record a solo album in this room which is what I did. I recorded all the guitars in here.
So yeah, it was always in the back of my mind to do something like this, you know, the solo stuff. I just found I really enjoyed the creative freedom. And I self-financed it all myself so there’s nobody breathing down my neck saying, “You shouldn’t be doing that.” I can experiment as much as I like. So that’s probably why you see quite a lot of different styles on the album. Because I’m the boss here of this little organisation, you know, and it’s really liberating. If I want to play a blues track, I’ll play a blues track, if I want to play a jazzy track, if I want to play some harder rock, I’ll do it, you know?
Yeah, those different styles certainly come out on the new album, and I know that’s been commented on in reviews.So, what do you want to tell us about the album Fields of Redemption that comes out on June the 20th?
Well, as I say, it’s very varied. It’s not like, say – and I’m not knocking them because I actually really like them – but you buy an Oasis album, you know what every track’s going to be. You know what it’s going to sound like before you even play it all. It’s great. But for me, that sort of approach is very limiting. So, I just wanted to be able to play whatever style I wanted at any given time, you know.
But also, the difference between this album and the last album was I got a co-producer on this album. A guy called Chris James Ryan. He’s Australian. He lives in Canada and he mixed Apparitions (Joe’s first solo album). That’s how I met him. But this time I wanted to widen the sound a bit and use orchestral elements and I wanted to bring in brass. And he was a great help with that. Communicating with these musicians along with me, you know? And we really went to town a bit more on the production this time – went really deep into getting the sounds right.
And, as I say, the guitars were recorded here in Northern Ireland, but the rest of it, like the drums and bass, were recorded in England. There were these two Austrian guys, Philipp Groyssboeck and Vinzenz Benjamin. And then I had musicians dotted all over the world. Like the horns were recorded in Germany by this Australian guy. I had a Brazilian percussionist. He was in Salvador. He recorded percussion over there.
Then one of the highlights for me was working with a guy called Paul McClure, who’s a bodhran player, the Irish drum. He was an ex-All-Ireland champion and he was phenomenal to work with. I did a couple of acoustic tracks. He’s on those, which is a first for me. I’ve never recorded an acoustic track from start to finish and I did two on this album so that was different.
It’s something I’m happy that I did, you know. Happy that I went so wide with the spectrum. But I would like to think that my guitar is the unifying factor, which brings it from start to finish and kind of makes sense of it, you know?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Your guitar shines throughout and your personality through that, I think. That’s definitely the unifying factor, isn’t it?
Yeah, and I also got to work with a singer who I’ve wanted to work with for a long time. A guy called Glen Harkin, who you heard on ‘Since You Had a Hold On Me’. Glen’s amazing. He’s probably the best male vocalist I’ve ever worked with, you know. You just turn on the mic, he was standing there behind me and I just let him open his mouth and sing. I’d say that track was done, his singing part in an hour, hour and a half.
His voice is perfect for that track. But as we say, it’s a mainly instrumental album. And I think with a lot of instrumental albums, they’re good at capturing abstract moods, but yours is actually telling stories, which I think is really, really fascinating. The music actually tells a story once you know the title. That’s quite a feat.
I’m really pleased you picked up on that because even though there’s maybe no words on the track, the tracks do mean things to me, you know? And there’s one track, that’s the very last track on the album. It’s the acoustic track, ‘The Ballad of Joe Clarke’. That’s quite a special track to me because it’s dedicated to a friend of mine who sadly died last year. And he was the person that brought me down to see Thin Lizzy in Dublin, you know? And he was a huge inspiration to me, because he played in local bands and he was a bit older than me, so I looked up to him. And I wanted to do this for him and his wife, Helena. That track means something to me, you know?
So finally, what next after this current album is released?
Next? Well, I would love to be able to tour this, you know, but it’s very, very difficult to do that with instrumental music. But if someone like a Robin Ford or a Joe Bonamassa said they want a support act. Yeah, count me in!
But looking further down the line with myself and Chris, we’ve already talked about the next album. And we actually want to go and do it in Nashville because he’s got quite a few contacts over there. Because you get these players in Nashville and they’re just unbelievable, you know. Probably do the ten songs, we’ll get the backing tracks done in a couple of days and then come back and work on the guitar. But that’s going to be a fair bit down the line, as I say, because all this is self-financed. So, it takes a while to get it together but that’s the next plan recording-wise.
Although their first album seemed to pass me by at the time I instantly became a fan of the Faversham-based folk rock band, Green Diesel, when I was asked to review their second album, Wayfarers All, back in 2014. They are currently promoting their fifth album,Onward The Sun, which came out in April and which was recently described by Shindig! magazine as “folk rock at its finest.” I couldn’t agree more which is why I headed over to Brighton to catch the band live.
Performing at the charmingly elegant Folklore Rooms above the Quadrant pub, the band were supported first by Bity Booker, a London-based alt-folk singer-songwriter with beautiful songs, a sweet voice and some hilariously deadpan introductions. And by Brighton’s own The Witchcraft & Vagrancy Act, who delve into the macabre side of folk to come up with their own fabulous folk horror interpretations of traditional songs – think Cecil Sharp had he spent his time hanging around with Bauhaus and Alice Cooper.
Bity Booker
For Green Diesel, the evening provides a welcome opportunity to showcase material from the new album alongside some older favourites. There’s well-received renditions of ‘Onward the Sun!’ the album’s title track, and ‘Ring The Hill’ another superb song from the album. Ellen Care’s vocals are utterly perfect for material of this type, combining just the right amount of sweetness and menace as she lets these folklore-inspired stories unfold, backed by some psych-folk guitar-wizardry, a powerful rhythm section and her own stunning fiddle playing.
Green Diesel have never been averse to a bit of folk horror themselves, of course, and tonight’s set includes the band’s cover of ‘Maypole’ from The Wicker Man soundtrack, sung by lead guitarist, Matt Dear, and given a suitably-ominous sounding Green Diesel makeover. The band even throw in a couple of Morris tunes which comprise the instrumental segment of the new album, again given the Green Diesel treatment: heavied up and performed in minor key. Superb stuff!
Green Diesel
Green Diesel just seem to get better and better with each year that passes. And with two impressive support acts it made the trip to Brighton and the never-knowingly-reliable late train back to Hastings well worthwhile.
“The best guitarist you’ve never heard of” “a brilliantly adventurous player, right up there with the likes of Satriani and Vai” – Steve Newton, Ear Of Newt
After a four-year hiatus, spent travelling, writing and recording, Irish guitarist Joe Hodgson returned to the scene in March 2025 with a double A-side instrumental offering, ‘The Grass Is Greener’ and ‘Shapeshifting’. This was followed in May by another double single, ‘Since You Had A Hold On Me’ featuring Glen Harkin on vocals, and the instrumental ‘Stick Or Twist’.
The third single of 2025, an instrumental ballad titled ‘You I Think Of’, is released on Friday 6th June and features a guest appearance by the world-renowned Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
Hodgson explains the origins of the track:
‘In early 2021, I was working on an acoustic arrangement of the Irish folk song, “Molly Malone”. It’s the unofficial anthem of Dublin City, one of my favourite places in the world. While I was working on the track, I started envisaging this story in my head of meeting and falling in love with a woman from Dublin. As the story gathered pace in my mind, I started playing melodies of my own over the same underlying chord sequence, and before I realised I had a complete piece of music composed. It had a beginning, a middle, and, thanks to the Molly Malone refrain, an end too’.
To fully complement the melodies of the new song, Joe decided to use strings, and he approached the Czech Philharmonic. He describes the resulting recording session in Prague as ‘a spine-tingling moment; the most memorable of the whole album’. But the story didn’t finish there. Joe did, in fact, meet his fantasy woman from Dublin, and in July 2022, they married. Most poignantly of all, though, she walked up the aisle to the string arrangement of ‘You I Think Of’.
The music itself is indeed a love story, and the track overflows with poignant melodies and hooks. Stylistically, Hodgson’s playing is a mixture of delicacy and intricacy, as his blues, jazz and rock-infused runs freely roam and colour the track. In combination with the orchestral strings, the purity of the guitar sound gives a lush and distinctly dream-like quality to the music. This track, taken from his forthcoming album, Fields Of Redemption, captures feelings of introspection, hope and inner peace, and comes from a guitar player who is certainly not afraid to expand his sound and take chances in pursuit of his art.
About Joe Hodgson:
Guitarist Joe Hodgson hails from the village of Ballymagorry in Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland. His music, shaped by his upbringing during The Troubles, mirrors the fierce rain and winds of the Emerald Isle. It is both sweeping and intense, boldly blending rock, blues, jazz, and Irish traditions into finely crafted instrumentals, which reveal a multifaceted, emotive, and diverse performer.
After many years of playing and recording with London-based bands and touring throughout Europe, Joe returned to his birthplace in 2018. In 2020, he released his debut solo album “Apparitions” to wide critical acclaim. Guitar World called his playing “elite”. Prominent Canadian music journalist Steve Newton said he is “the best guitarist you’ve never heard of”. While ANR Factory described the album as “a modern-day masterpiece”.
On June 20th, 2025, Hodgson is set to release his second solo album, Fields Of Redemption.
Eilidh Shaw (fiddle and vocals) and Ross Martin (guitar) are best known for their work with two leading Scottish traditional bands. Shaw for her work with The Poozies and Martin with Daimh. Between them they have spent over two decades touring with both their own bands and as guest artists with an vast array of top performers, including Julie Fowlis, Bonnie Prince Billy, Tony Christie and Arnaud Ciapolino.
Performing under the name Birl-Esque, Stay Here All Night is their second album as a duo. Born out of the long musical winter of lockdowns and cancelled gigs, the obvious choice faced by many couples was to either order another case of wine or build a home studio. Eilidh Shaw and Ross Martin did both of these things. The resulting album is a festival of creativity, full of the style and character that the duo has become known for.
Eilidh Shaw’s fiddle takes the lead on the instrumentals, such as ‘Swimmy Tunes’ above. The duo comment: “Two tunes written by Eilidh after a glorious west coast summer swimming in the sea around Arisaig. No swimming in this video as, although still very beautiful, it was a very cold day in January. The beautiful islands of Eigg and a snow-capped Rum in the background.”
New compositions such as this sit alongside old Highland classics like the ‘Thief of Lochaber’ and ‘Paddy’s Waltzes’, a set of Gaelic waltzes taken from her father’s home-made music book.
The four songs on the album include covers of contemporary Scottish writers such as ‘Stoned Again’ by Sandy Wright and ‘Better Off Dead’ by Willie MacAskill while the title track ‘Stay Here All Night’ showcases Shaw’s own songwriting.
Ross Martin’s consummate guitar arrangements tie the album together while the whole project is further decorated by a star-studded list of guest musicians that happened to be either passing the duo’s Highland home in Morar or had made the same decision during the dark days of covid and contributed from their own home studios.
With a combined total of 74 years of gigging experience and over 100 album appearances between them this dazzling duo seamlessly blur the lines between the traditional and the contemporary with a uniquely mischievous style.
Those who felt a Show of Hands-shaped hole in their lives, since the acclaimed west country duo went on indefinite hiatus last year, didn’t have to wait too long for new material featuring those warm, impassioned, familiar tones of vocalist, Steve Knightley.
First there was last Autum’s solo album, The Winter Yards (“poignant, tender, thought-provoking and rousing, in turn…”) and equally quick-off-the-mark came a follow-up in the Spring, Positively Folk Street: Dylan, Carthy & Me. While the former was very much a showcase for Knightley’s continuing brilliance as a songwriter and passionate observance of the world around him, this latter release is all about returning to his formative influences: back to when the young Knightley first tentatively dipped his toes into the world of acoustic folk.
Steve Knightley: “When I first picked up an acoustic guitar in my mid-teens, my repertoire was very limited – and then I discovered ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’. That album was a revelation. At the time, I had no idea Dylan had drawn so deeply from our own folk traditions to shape many of his songs.Later that summer, I found myself at Sidmouth Folk Festival, where I saw martin Carthy perform live for the first time. Another moment of discovery.“
“This album is a tribute to those formative influences. Across these twelve songs I revisit the worlds of Bob Dylan and martin Carthy – two artists who shaped my musical journey and set me on a path I’m still working.”
Containing six Dylan songs and six trad. arr. compositions from the repertoire of Carthy, it’s rare to come across a contemporary folk release these days where one is quite so familiar with the material. But Knightley applies his characteristic verve, passion and singularity and breathes new life into a beautifully-chosen set of songs. A must-buy for any Show of Hands and Steve Knightley fans, giving an insight into the songs and artists that helped shape his own career.
When Norwich-based folk duo, Christina Alden & Alex Patterson, released their debut album, Hunter, back in 2021 I found it a highly enjoyable listen and was struck by the duo’s lovely melodies, heart-warming vocals and charming story-telling.
We’ve had a while to wait but now they are back with a brand-new album, Safe Travels, featuring ten original songs and a duo-composed instrumental.
Recorded at the couple’s home studio in the centre of Norwich, they outline the genesis of the album as follows:
“We began making this album at the start of 2022 as the world was emerging from the global pandemic and just before the birth of our daughter, Etta. Some of these songs are like old friends that have travelled many miles with us, while others came about in the final stages of production. This is a collection of songs and tunes that feel as if they have grown and changed with us over the years. Those keen listeners among you may even hear some of our home life; our old cat pottering and meowing around the house; our daughter talking in the background or the sound of city life just beyond the city walls. We are so proud of this album and it’s been a real pleasure creating the music together.”
A number of the songs on the album are highly personal, such as the lovely ‘Etta’s Song’ (above) celebrating the birth of the couple’s baby daughter; the charmingly infectious ‘Our House’ which recalls Alden’s memories of growing up in a home filled with music; and the poignant ‘A Hundred Years Ago’ which, rather than being an epic historical folk tale, is all about recalling momentous events in one’s own life. However, as with the previous album, songs celebrating the beauty of the natural world also feature heavily and, as in the case of the ecologically-themed ‘The Mountain Hair’, the threat that the effects of man-made climate change poses to our natural landscape.
Both Alden and Patterson are accomplished multi-instrumentalists and finger-picked guitar interwoven with beautiful string arrangements make for a gentle yet versatile backdrop for Alden’s crystal clear lead vocal and Patterson’s warm harmonising. As with the debut album, pleasing melodies and heart-warming story-telling is the order of the day.
After a four-year journey Safe Travels has finally reached its intended destination and it’s an album that’s been well worth the wait.
Given I spent the battle of Britpop firmly in the Blur camp, I passed up on the chance to buy tickets for the Oasis reunion when it was announced last summer. A couple of weeks later, however, when Supergrass announced that they would also be reforming to celebrate the 30th anniversary of I Should Co-Co, I was in the online queue as soon as tickets went on sale. Always my favourite band of the Britpop era, a chance to hear Supergrass’s debut album performed in full promised to be something rather special.
The Roundhouse is absolutely packed and although my gig companions for the evening have tickets for the main standing area, given that I sprained my ankle a few days before and thus hobbling around with a walking stick, I’m actually quite relieved that in the initial mad scramble for tickets I ended up with a seat right up in the gods.
After support from Rizzy & the Gents and Rialto, Supergrass took the stage to the siren blast and opening riff from The Sweet’s ‘Blockbuster’ before launching into ‘I’d Like To Know’ – track one from their debut album. Then, and now, the songs on I Should Co-Co fizz with youthful exuberance and pop-punk energy. “Like a nude Noddy Holder starting a fight,” is how Mojo described the album at the time. And it’s incredible to think how young the band were when they made it, especially given many of the songs had been written and demoed at least a couple of years earlier.
None more so than ‘Caught By The Fuzz’, the band’s first single and a gloriously relatable account of Gaz Coombes’ heart-pounding, stream-of-consciousness panic as he’s arrested for cannabis possession at the tender age of fifteen. Then it’s straight into ‘Mansize Rooster’, a song about a very young man with a very large appendage, followed by the ubiquitous teen summer anthem, ‘Alright’. These are a songs that have been a regular highlight of their set over many tours, of course, but there’s others from that first album getting a rare airing on this anniversary tour. Songs like the raunchy blues-rocker ‘We’re Not Supposed To’ or the swirling, psychedelic-tinged ‘Sofa (of My Lethargy)’ have barely been performed since the ‘90s.
The band’s precocious youthfulness when they wrote these songs is encapsulated in the on-stage banter when ‘She’s So Loose’ is introduced. Drummer Danny Goffey explains that it’s “about underage sex with older women.” “We might not have written this in 2025,” Gaz Coombes quickly reassures us. “We were like fucking sixteen!”
No matter. All are played to perfection tonight, the band summoning up hitherto untapped reserves of teen energy as they rip through this furiously-paced album at break-neck speed. The Roundhouse audience responds with waves of affection and impromptu crowd sing-alongs throughout the set.
After Coombes grabs his acoustic guitar and the audience sings along to the whimsical album epilogue ‘Time to Go’, there’s a still some time for a quick canter through some of the highlights from the rest of Supergrass’s back catalogue. Given the time constraints they choose well given the time constraints. The second and third albums are well-represented with three songs apiece, while there’s just one additional song – from 2002’s Life On Other Planets album. This is about celebrating the ‘90s after all!
After the monster riffing of ‘Richard III’ there’s time for the more reflective, melancholic side of Supergrass in the shape of ‘Late In The Day’, ‘Mary’ and the ever-gorgeous ‘Moving’. Then it’s another full-energy romp with a truly life-affirming rendition of early noughties single, ‘Grace’. They depart the stage to well-deserved applause.
Of course, there still two songs that we’re all still waiting for. It’s long before they are back on stage for an encore of ‘Sun Hits The Sky’ which then segues straight into a glamtastic ‘Pumping On Your Stereo’.
Supergrass absolutely nailed it. This will be the best Britpop reunion of 2025 bar none.
I’d Like to Know Caught by the Fuzz Mansize Rooster Alright Lose It Lenny Strange Ones Sitting Up Straight She’s So Loose We’re Not Supposed To Time Sofa (of My Lethargy) Time To Go Richard III Late in the Day Mary Moving Grace Sun Hits the Sky Pumping on Your Stereo
After a five-year gap since their last album, Emergency Lullabies, Merry Hell are back with a brand-new, full-length studio release.Rising of the Bold is very much the Wigan folk-rockers’ ‘getting-it-together-in-the-country’ album, when the eight-strong band converged at a country house in Shropshire to assemble material for this latest release.
That idyllic pastoral setting may have had an influence some the eventual output because, overall, this comes across as a more varied and slightly more sophisticated take on the trademark Merry Hell template. It’s still effortlessly catchy folk rock, packed with bags of rhythm and memorable melodies but the quota of sing-along, festival-friendly anthems seems to have been dialled down a tad in favour of a little more light and shade.
It makes for a compelling set of songs. From the pounding folk rhythms of album opener ‘Pick Yourself Up and Dance’, to the defiant storytelling of the Levellers-esque ‘Vagaband Army’, to the darker, brooding sound textures of ‘Changing Times’, to the breezy, jangling, Byrds-like aura of ‘Changing Just The Same’, to the joyful optimism of ‘Singing in the Morning’ (which rounds off the album) there’s certainly no shortage of highpoints. It all manages to remain unmistakably Merry Hell, however, and their personalities both as songwriters and as performers shine through.
New fiddle player Simon Swarbrick, nephew of the late folk legend himself, gets to make his mark across the album with some fine playing. Moreover, in true Swarbrick fashion he gets to contribute a jaunty, foot-tapping fiddle-led instrumental in the shape of ‘Lizard On A Log’.
Don’t fret. The sing-along communal anthems haven’t been banished entirely, the centrepiece of which is the self-explanatory ‘Peace Can Be Louder Than War’, with accompaniment from the Thousand Voice Choir.
Merry Hell’s status as a perennial festival attraction was never in any doubt but this latest release is proof that the band continue to deliver on the album front, too.
“The best guitarist you’ve never heard of” “a brilliantly adventurous player, right up there with the likes of Satriani and Vai” – Steve Newton, Ear Of Newt
After a four-year hiatus, spent travelling, writing and recording, Irish guitarist Joe Hodgson returned to the scene in March 2025 with a double A-side instrumental offering, “The Grass Is Greener” and “Shapeshifting”.
The follow-up, another double single, marks a departure from Hodgson’s customary all-instrumental fanfares and features Irish vocalist Glen Harkin on the smoky bar room blues song “Since You Had A Hold On Me”. This is coupled with “Stick Or Twist”, a hard-hitting, in-your-face instrumental rocker which flirts with funk and soul, as Hodgson continues to straddle and blend musical genres with the introduction of brass to his sound.
Joe, whose playing has been described as ‘elite’ by Guitar World magazine says, “Since You Had A Hold On Me” is about the realisation that a relationship has not only run its course but that your partner no longer controls you’. We see the gravel-voiced Harkin remembering the good times but determined to walk out that door all the same. The blues is the perfect medium to express this, and while Hodgson’s mantra, ’words can lie, but my guitar can’t’, initially appears like a contradiction, the inclusion of vocals poignantly emphasises that love is often peppered with half-truths and downright lies. The track begins and ends with aching lead guitar lines, as Hodgson puts his undeniable stamp on the music.
The second track on this double single, the raucous instrumental “Stick Or Twist”, could be viewed as a precursor to the blues track. Hodgson explains, ‘This track is inspired by the moments of uncertainty and the -Will I? Won’t I?- experiences we all encounter’. The restless, edgy nature of the music underlines the unease that underpins its meaning, as Hodgson shifts pace and guitar styles through the many twists and turns of the song.
These tracks, taken from his forthcoming album, “Fields Of Redemption”, capture feelings of introspection, pain, hope and joy, and they come from a guitar player who is certainly not afraid to take chances in pursuit of his art.
About Joe Hodgson:
Guitarist Joe Hodgson hails from the village of Ballymagorry in Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland. His music, shaped by his upbringing during The Troubles, mirrors the fierce rain and winds of the Emerald Isle. It is both sweeping and intense, boldly blending rock, blues, jazz, and Irish traditions into finely crafted instrumentals, which reveal a multifaceted, emotive, and diverse performer.
After many years of playing and recording with London-based bands and touring throughout Europe, Joe returned to his birthplace in 2018. In 2020, he released his debut solo album “Apparitions” to wide critical acclaim. Guitar World called his playing “elite”. Prominent Canadian music journalist Steve Newton said he is “the best guitarist you’ve never heard of”. While ANR Factory described the album as “a modern-day masterpiece”.
On June 20th, 2025, Hodgson is set to release his second solo album, “Fields Of Redemption”. As a forerunner to this, he released a double A-side single in March, comprising “The Grass Is Greener” and “Shapeshifting”, which garnered glowing press reviews.
The follow-up, which drops on Friday 9th May, is another double offering: “Since You Had A Hold On Me”, featuring Irish vocalist Glen Harkin, and the instrumental “Stick Or Twist”.
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