- Label: 'Down The River Records'
- Genre: 'Folk'
- Release Date: '8th September 2023'- Catalogue No: 'WJ003'
Our Rating:
Wayward Jane is not a fallen woman but a traditional folk band comprising Dan Abrahams (guitar, double bass, vocals), Sam Gillespie (vocals, guitar, wooden flute), Rachel Petyt (fiddle, vocals) and Michael Starkey (5-string banjo, guitar, vocals).
The tunes of this accomplished Edinburgh-based collective combine original compositions with interpretation of old-time American folk songs. In other words, their music could be said to straddle the Scottish Highlands and the Appalachian mountains. The Flood is their third album.
The quality of the musicianship is beyond question as instrumentals like Brokeback and Doucement effortlessly demonstrate. However, the tunes tend to have a slickness rather than a strangeness. The rawness and, at times, wickedness of old-time folk is therefore smoothed away and contains none of the old or new weird qualities that make it such a compelling and timeless genre.
The humour of Shake Sugaree and the pathos Didn’t It Rain is thus more muted while Little Satchel, a lament of a prisoner dreaming of reuniting with his true love, lacks the sense of desperation that should underpin the song.
By any standards this is an impressive album but a little more waywardness from this ‘Jane’ would have given the tunes still more character and depth.
