The natural worry for live-music fans, when you hear one of our favourite live acts is going to record music, is “is it going to sound as good recorded as it does live!?”
Known for their ferocious live shows, Holly & The Reivers are an excellent live act; full of multi-part vocals, precise folk musicianship and lovely (interesting) asides. If only in terms of capturing their energy – they must have been difficult to record.
“We were a bit worried when we went in to record the album” confirms Holly Clarke, one of the Reivers trio of band-members “but we also knew we could play well so we were pretty confident it would come out okay”.
And come out okay it sure does.
Taken over 11 tracks, the self-titled, debut, album from Holly & The Reivers, is a treat for lovers of the darker elements of folk. Accompanied by wonderful musicianship, and stunning three-part-harmonies, Reivers tracks it’s way across some of the most iconic parts of folk – letting each song breathe fully so that they capture the expanse of their surroundings. It’s like listening to a live Cormac McCarthy reading.
“The album’s an amalgamation of all of the elements we love about folk” continues Clarke “which for us means that it’s heavily into ‘folk horror’ aspects, so imagine the sound of The Wickerman Soundtrack which is creepy and eery in places”.
Choosing tracks which fall into the ‘folk horror’ realm, Reviers is an album with a deliberate narrative theme- songs such as “The Bold Marauder” and “Walking Boss” drawing out elements of protest and punk that are deeply rooted in the more defiant aspects of folk.
“For the debut record we’ve chosen songs we really believe in. So songs like Bold Marauder are protesting war and Bleary Winter talks about lamenting the loss of England’s land. With the current times and ideas of war, and of the right to roam movement, we felt like these were good songs to not only showcase beautiful folk songs but also showcase messages that are still really vital today. Another song, Willie O Winsbury, is a 400 year old song about Queer love – again these are great pieces to connect with but also to show that there is still much to fight for and to be angry about”.
Whilst album launch dates are still being figured out (“we’re really keen to do some local live album dates but there’s a few things to still be worked out”), the talk is already on album two and what comes next (“we feel like this is just scratching the surface of what we want to make, but we’re really happy with the record and want to create new atmospheres as soon as we can”).
In the meantime you have the options of either seeing the Reivers live or listening to them recorded – both options being equally as good.