Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
A lot can and will be written about British Folk music in the early part of the 21st Century, its resurgence as a defining genre, the ability of its players, the songs and tunes performed. If there is no book on the subject forthcoming as we unimaginably speed through the first 20 years of this time in which we sit on the precipice of greatness and equally on the edge of the chasm of folly, then the world will be a darker place for the lack of passion raised.
It is a sobering thought that arguably Folk never goes out of style or has to reinvent itself as a genre, that eventually all roads that once led to Rome and the countryside shores of rivers of the British Isles, towns and village pubs where the local tales grew strong as the night of flourished ale and mead reared its head. It is in these Phantom Voices of places unseen by our eyes but visited nightly as we listen carefully to the wind carrying songs of war, hangmen’s noose, Russian gymnasts and lost ships, that we realise we must continue to search for anything that gives us Peace By Peace.
For fans of Lancashire Folk Rock band Phantom Voices, Peace By Peace represents an addition surely to the book of early 21st Century Folk exploits and beautiful required listening. In Mike Rolland, Joanna Byrne, Daz Rice, Richard Curran, Jim Shea and Mark Mitchell’s sense of stimulating vocal harmony and noteworthy subject matter, the album really does capture the essence of the genre to its absolute and fullness of spirit.
In tracks such as Shot In The Dark, Molly Vaughn, The Thomas Salto (Yelena), Old Ned, the superb 6th Form Politik and Phantom of the Fell, the band stride purposely and with great vision through the terrain, one eye on the map perhaps, but always with an inbuilt aptitude to understand exactly where they are going regardless. It is a journey that is magnificent, endowed with the honour of fragile thought but also with strength of purpose to see the music win through.
Peace By Peace is the kind of album that would make anybody’s list of recordings in which to make sure is in their safe hands, song by song, piece by piece, it is in the harmony of coming together and reconvening in goodwill that makes this album so enjoyable.
Ian D. Hall