The Trials of Cato
Got Magog
Self-released
★★★★

SINCE their debut album Hide and Hair in 2018 this Welsh/English folk trio have been making waves on the folk scene winning the Best Album title in the 2019 BBC2 Radio Folk Awards.

Since then, the pandemic intervened as well as a line-up change with mandolin player Polly Bolton replacing Will Addison. Taking the title tune from the mythical giant of the Cambridgeshire chalk hills this new album is an intriguing mix of folklore, history and modern-day reflections of our current times.

Myth and legend are to the fore in When Black Shuck Roams and history in Boudicca AD 60 a paean to the Iceni queen. Ring of Roses is a modern-day plague song following the pandemic and there is also a raucous version of the 17th-century song Bedlam Boys.

Part traditional, part contemporary, The Trials of Cato continue to develop the folk genre further.

Rachel Baiman
Common Nation of Sorrow
Signature Sounds
★★★★

WHEN US born singer-songwriter Rachel Baiman was a child her father was a member of Democratic Socialists of America something she was reluctant to tell her friends about in a country where any form of socialism was considered taboo.

Since then, however her own generation has had to consider the realities of their economic oppression.

This, her third album, is a no-holds-barred look at the realities of US capitalism.

Starting with Some Strange Notion from which the album title is drawn and continuing with songs like Bitter the album is a call for generational activism against the alienation young people feel.

Baiman also draws on her personal experience of bipolar disorder in Lovers and Leavers but for her it is part of the same American story of lack of affordable healthcare. With a country bluegrass feel this is in the best traditions of US political songwriting.

Megson
What Are We Trying To Say
EDJ Records
★★★★

TEESSIDE folk duo Stu and Debbie Hanna have had a career spanning nearly 20 years. This first studio album in four years was written through the pandemic and focuses on how we can both rely on the media for information whilst needing to figure out what is the real truth.

The title track explores the theme of journalists hunting for news stories at any cost whilst Keeping Him On examines the media’s blinkered relationship with those in power.

The Conspiracy Trap looks at how easily people can get drawn into theories from the world being flat to pandemic conspiracies.  
There are also two older songs Canny Old Blind Willie about the death of Tyneside performer William Purvis in 1832, and The Barber’s News about a gossiping barber who spread news about a sea monster in the River Tyne.

An enjoyable and highly relevant album.