Raw, brutal masterpieces - 2018's best folk albums

The Guardian 0

Lisa O’Neill, Lori Watson, Trembling Bells, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy were among the many standout acts in a very distinguished year for the genre

The best folk of 2018 was raw, bloody and brutal. Stick in the Wheel’s Follow Them True (From Here) started the year with an uncompromising take on traditional music, delivering ancient songs such as The Unquiet Grave as if they were emerging from the earth after years of being lost. Experimental flourishes (Nicola Kearey’s vocals treated with Auto-Tune, for example) only added to the uncanny, arresting mood. In November, the band also released an atmospheric mixtape, which is hugely worth checking out.

Lisa O’Neill’s Heard a Long Gone Song (River Lea) went even further. Her resolutely unpretty, belly-deep Irish drawl hymned the decline of industry, depression, and the deaths of young children. Let it submerge you and a modern folk masterpiece emerges, its roots twisting back to records such as Lal and Mike Waterson’s Bright Phoebus, which has sadly been pulled from sale in recent weeks because of copyright issues. Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy’s warm and wildly varied Anchor (Topic), reminds you how adventurous that family always were and still are.