Tag Archives: Virginia Kettle

Folk-rock: album review – Merry Hell ‘Rising of the Bold’

Album reviews, Folk music, Rock music, , , , ,

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.

Released: 9th May 2025 http://www.merryhell.co.uk/

Related posts:

Live review: Merry Hell at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention August 2023

Album review – Merry Hell ‘Let The Music Speak For Itself’

Album review – Merry Hell ‘Emergency Lullabies’

Album review – Virginia Kettle ‘No Place Like Tomorrow’

DVD review: Merry Hell ‘A Year In The Life’

Album review: Merry Hell ‘Anthems To The Wind’

Folk/singer-songwriter: album review – Virginia Kettle ‘No Place Like Tomorrow’

Album reviews, Folk music, , , ,

Virginia Kettle’s vocals have been a key element of of Merry Hell’s sound since the band’s inception a decade ago. Before joining her husband John, brothers-in-law Bob and Andrew, and sundry others in the eight-piece folk-rock outfit, however, she’d established herself as a singer-songwriter in her own right. As Virginia Barrett, she released two solo albums: ‘The Quiet Bridge’ and ‘Sense of Human’ prior to joining the band. No Place Like Tomorrow is her first solo album since Merry Hell began, however.

It’s a more intimate affair than a typical Merry Hell album, both in terms of personnel and in terms of subject matter. The songs have far less of an obvious political tone than many Merry Hell songs and here Kettle tends to touch on more personal matters: love, relationships, family life. ‘Union Jack House’ is the most political song on the album but is structured and delivered in a way that has surprising echoes of Victoria Wood (with a little bit of Are You Being Served thrown in!)

Fans of Merry Hell will already be familiar with the title track, given it appeared on their 2015 album The Ghost in Our House and Other Stories, sung by Andrew, was reworked for their 2018 album Anthems to the Wind, sung by Virginia, and is now reworked once again. A beautifully tender, less anthemic and more delicate rendering than before, this is now the definitive version in my view.

Although Kettle is not backed by the full band she is, at various points, supported by the Hell’s fiddle-player Neil McCartney, bass-player Nick Davies and her guitarist husband John Kettle. Indeed, on a couple of tracks the stripped-back, more intimate feel of the solo album really allows McCartney’s elegant fiddle-playing to take centre-stage: the title track and ‘Valentine’s Waltz’. For me, that tailor-made combination of Kettle’s vocals and McCartney’s fiddle make these two of the real stand-out tracks on the album.

A mellower and more personal offering than a Merry Hell release No Place Like Tomorrow is a charming album that showcases Virginia Kettle’s obvious talents as a singer-songwriter.

Released: 12th July 2020

http://www.vkandthedreamkeepers.com/

http://www.merryhell.co.uk

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‘Leave It In The Ground’ – Merry Hell release climate call to action

DVD review: Merry Hell ‘A Year In The Life’

Album review: Merry Hell ‘Anthems To The Wind’

EP review: Merry Hell ‘Bury Me Naked’

EP review: Merry Hell ‘Come On England!’