Oh heck. I have to confess that I deferred playing this for a while. The cover scared me. Not in the sense that it kept me awake at night or gave me nightmares, you understand. It’s just the kind of album cover that looks like it might be a spoof, then you realise that it’s deadly serious. I’d also noted that tracks on the album include ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe,’ the song made popular by the excruciating Rednex, and ‘Crying in the Rain,’ a song originally recorded by Carole King and covered by A-ha at the point they decided they wanted to become ‘serious’ ‘artists.’ Or something. Whatever, I liked it, even though it was a real career-killer for them.
I managed to bring myself to give it a spin eventually, of course. My curiosity got the better of me in the end.
Ultimately, my expectations were met. Euphonia clearly believe in what they do, and enjoy doing it. What’s more they do it well, delivering an album that contains an equal mix of folk standards from the four corners of the globe and less obvious and more contemporary tunes given a classic folk treatment. So, ‘The Old Man at the Mill’ is an archetypal line-dancing number, while ‘Let the Bullgine Run’ is brimful of nonsensical ‘hey nonny-nonny’ type folkisms, but has a touching melancholy edge. There’s a good balance of up-tempo and downbeat, and while it’s not my thing in the slightest, on ‘The Old Jawbone’ Euphonia deliver exactly what it says on the tin – or on the front cover. And I can’t really argue with that.
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