Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 9/10
The world around us is not an illusion, but it can be described as fake, a sense of the limitation and imitation which we believe we require to breathe within, a shell which has hardened our souls and keeps us captive, a place where we become ever more disconnected from because we believe that the true face of humanity and its place on Earth is one of ugly thoughts and actions. We have become happy in our Enclosure, and the circle keeps on getting smaller, our pen more restricted.
It takes a bold outlook, a dynamic soul unafraid to be courageous in distempered times to break down walls and barriers that have been put up seemingly with our permission, it takes stoutness and a beautiful song to remind the majority of the coop and cage that exists and a seizing of the moment to understand that it can be brought down; an eagle may fly solo but it is free, it is only the chattering and the murder of crows that flock together, ready to be scared of the false man in the middle of the field.
In disconnection there is the chance to find freedom, in detachment there is always the opportunity to reconnect, we are at the cusp of such a moment, the natural world has been sold to us as a commodity to which we pay a premium to keep, whereas the thinking, so elegantly portrayed by The Askew Sisters in their first album together in five years, is that the Enclosure should be ripped apart, freedom in spirit is freedom in mind.
With Emily and Hazel reunited, the experience of the new album Enclosure is one of liberation in their constant virtue of the English Folk commentary and in songs such as Wandered By The Brookside, The Wounded Hussar, The Zodiac/Joy After Sorrow, Minoway, My Father Built Me A Pretty Tower, London’s Loyalty/Heady Days and Castle By The Sea, the freedom is sacrosanct, stirring and one that is drawn upon a rich palate of colours that twirl upon the air as if caught by a breeze.
You can help a closed mind, you can lead it to safety, you can inspire it to see that the pen is only made of wood, by doing so the only enclosure we should be facing is that of the comfort of music as it wraps its arms around us; something that The Askew Sisters succeed in doing every time.
The Askew Sisters release Enclosure via Oakmere Music on May 3rd.
Ian D. Hall