My Music in 2015 - Albums - Part 2

Here we are again, just over a week after my first foray on this subject. The rules are the same as in Part 1. I hope you find something to like or to argue about.
Critical comments are quite as welcome as positive ones just so long they are not offensive or defamatory. A fact is that a credited post always has more gravitas than an anonymous one and that applies even if the content of both were to be exactly the same. I reserve the right to publish comments on this post and will credit them accordingly.

• Ange Hardy - Esteesee
• Chantel McGregor - Lose Control
• Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
• Fara - Fara
• Girlpool - Before The World Was Big
• Heather Crosse - Groovin' At The Crosse Roads
• Mad Dog McRea - Almost Home
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Watershed
• The Rosellys - The Barn Sessions
• Stick In The Wheel - From Here

Part 1 was equally divided between acts from the UK and from North America and that only occurred to me after I posted it. This selection is much more UK biased, featuring just two acts from North America and an Australian. Specifically this one...

Courtney Barnett, Far Out Stage, Green Man Festival - Sunday evening, 23 August 2015.

Girlpool, Big Top stage, End Of The Road Festival - Saturday 5 September 2015.

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, Marnhull Acoustic Sessions - Sunday 23 February 2014.

The Rosellys, Saloon Stage, Truck Festival - Friday 18 July 2015.

Fara, Stage 2, Cambridge Folk Festival - Thursday 30 July 2015.

You may be wondering why I often use links to my earlier comments in these lists; this is because they often contain more back-links to the artist, as well as to other related topics. It saves listing multiple links all over again.

Live - Mad Dog Mcrea and Sound of the Sirens

I have recently mentioned the various threats to live music venues and I shall come back to that sooner or later. There are equally some too-little known and this is one of them - The Lights, Andover - and I have mentioned it here before.
So here we are again, surrounded by the Tellytubby ambience that is worth a visit alone, and which headline act Mad Dog Mcrea immediately picked up on!
This was however far more than that --- for with a sizeable and enthusiastic audience this is really quite some treasure. I was unaware that there would be a support act until I arrived but I soon saw the signs -  as they flitted back and forth across the foyer - which happens to be between the Green Room and the venue itself.

Sound of the Sirens - The Lights, Andover - 20 March 2015.

Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood, from Exeter, played a quite extensive set of their variously interwoven brand of folk-rock with tinges of surf pop and country. Many were from the 2013 LP 'A Long Way To Fall' but others older and more recent too.

Following them was Plymouth-based folk-punk six-piece Mad Dog Mcrea, whom I mentioned just a week ago. I'm more than glad that I did post that; equally that I took my chance to see them live. Yes there were a few niggles with the sound, a tendency to feedback being the main one, but that did not detract to any real degree from a memorable gig. It was however a big photographic fail on my part and I have no excuses.  Looking on the bright side it is a very good excuse to go and see them live again and even if I had taken the most stunning photos I would be more than happy to do that in any case.
Here they are badly photographed and in apparently deserted Tellytubby-land...

This was pure fun, they got folks dancing, told silly stories and all.

Added 14 April 2015:

Sound of The Sirens performing 'Faith In Fire' at Annabel's, in Plymouth's Barbican, 11 April 2015.

New Music 2015 - Part 20 - Mad Dog McRea - Almost Home

At last I get to review a band from Plymouth.  I am going to see  Mad Dog McRea, trailing the latest album 'Almost Home', this coming week. More on that after the event.

It is released on d/l on 15 March and on CD 23 March 2013 in the UK.

It is perhaps appropriate to start with an introduction. Mad Dog Mcrea is a six-piece comprising the following artists:

Michael Mathieson  ---  guitar and lead vocals

Dan Crimp  ---  whistle and flute

Nicki Powell  ---  fiddle

Podmore  ---  bouzouki, banjo

Jimi Galvin  ---  bass

Pete Chart  ---  percussion

With much garnered from the ranks of the folk-punks that have come before, comparisons with the likes of The Pogues, the Levellers and others come all too easily but that they are indeed worthy of such comparisons does not necessarily follow.
The former is certainly no criticism and that they are worthy is certainly not the only thing to admire. What I like as much as the foregoing is that, with the flute and fiddle, one or two of the softer songs made me recall the very best of Jethro Tull.
I don't say that lightly. It may not be a fashionable comparison, to be fair, but it is a complement nevertheless.

Almost Home

• Almost Home
• Talking Through The Walls
• I've Seen Things
• You Can't Find Me
• Cher
• The Sound
• The Devonside
• Heart of Stone
• Whiskey Man
• The Juggler

That is the track list of the album.
Buy. Listen. Enjoy.

New Music 2014 - Part 42 - The Leylines - Let It Go

The problem with this time of year is that amongst all the others I get to discover some of the things that, due to inattention or oversight, I have managed to miss over the previous eleven months. This is one of them and only made worse by the fact that the band is fairly local and the influence of another although not local, The Levellers, of whom I was writing praises in June, is clearly important but not overbearing.

The Leylines is a five-piece, based around-and-about Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. The first release was an EP Let It Go at the start of 2014. Better still have a listen now and then buy it.

The Leylines are most certainly on my list of acts to see live in 2015 as are another, somewhat better known and longer-established one. Mad Dog Mcrea, to pursue the above analogy, might just be Plymouth's answer to (the early days of) The Pogues.
The recent song 'Am I Drinking Enough?' certainly suggests a kindred spirit. More importantly, so does their reputation and especially that for live performance.
Simply because such a thing is possible, here it is - recorded live in a very special shed in Somerset!