Released 14th August
Domino
5/10
Cellardyke is a village in the east of Scotland, and there are two different traditions of wassailing, one equivalent to Christmas carolling and the other, the Orchard-Visiting wassail that involves visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England to recite incantations and sing to the trees to promote a good harvest. The most original thing about this album is its title.
The Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society is pretty boring. I love folk music and have happily sat through some Yorkston before, but you’ll not find anything here that you wouldn’t find elsewhere – from the very Bill Callahan-like ‘Guy Fawkes’ Signature’ to the clingy female backing vocals (which I thought he would’ve lost by now) that I have come across too many times elsewhere with The Moldy Peaches, First Aid Kit, et al. There’s even a very good impression of Thom Yorke in ‘Feathers are Falling’. It’s very à la mode folk-y: akin to Fleet Foxes and all that, i.e. there’s more of exactly the same from Yorkston.
Of course there is always something in the bridging of different styles to create something new. But there’s nothing new here: there’s little combination, every song simply switches from one type/artist’s panache to another.
But from other reviews it seems that I’m missing something. Everyone seems to love it — but they talk mostly about the lyrics — the music itself has just been described as “haunting” and other such adjectives typically used for this genre of music. The lyrics are occasionally interesting when they’re not his typical style of nonsense rambling. For example it’s sweet when he quotes his “oldest” saying “when I grow up I will be the king of the moles and will build you a home…” on ‘Sleep on’, a song about losing a loved one. They’re an attempt to immortalise things in his life—experiences with his children and such, and why not? But this is only worthy of a hobby, to play to a familiar audience in his local bar perhaps—lose those stalk-y backing female vocals and that would be lovely to sit in on. But that’s it.
At least it’s not a painful listen—they go down quite smoothly. Just so bloody ordinary.
