Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Stories are important, vital, central to the idea of what we are, the ability to weave a tale and have it last for generations is perhaps the reason why there is some approximate truth in the myths and legends that have given us a basis in which our lives have been built upon. Whilst dragons are not visible to our eyes, while the lost island of Atlantis evokes memories but no shred of final resting place, and the resting place of King Arthur remains a shrouded mystery, it is not to say that the folk legends that have grown up around them are any less intriguing than they were at the time of their first mentions by our ancestor’s tongues.
The power of the story is such that you can put a half truth out in the world of social media today and before it is questioned and probed, it somehow has taken on a life force of its own, stories, fables and memories all have their place. In terms of the arts they gather all that is great and wonderful about our skill and talent to enthral, that it is a reflection of life laid down to any canvas available and one that has a gleaming lock attached to them, not a tarnished restraint covering the loved folklore.
Folk music and the Progressive arguably takes such stories more seriously than most musical genres, the wealth of information, the intertwining of history, tales from our own communities that have been retold down through the centuries, it is to this that the shackles are unleashed and celebrated.
For Rusty Shackle it has all been built upon the willingness to learn about the history of the Folk tale, pouring as they have over every detail, learning the moment and the words, and then having their incredible foresight to give them a new direction, of offering them to a new set of fans in the album The Raven, The Thief & The Hangman.
Across songs such as Sam Hall, Newport Rising, The Holy Ground, The Raven’s Song and St. James Infirmary, the six-piece band from Monmouthshire strike out with early promise, and then pull out all the stops to deliver an album that is ripe, passionate, fulsome and one that is proof that they have learned their trade exceedingly well.
Stories are there to give us a reason to see how we measure ourselves against the past, what lessons we have heeded, what thrills us, the Folk tale is arguably more than that, it is a recounting of history which defines who we are today and one that has been enormously developed by the engaging Rusty Shackle.
Rusty Shackle release The Raven, The Thief & The Hangman on March 8th on Get Folked Records.
Ian D. Hall