I was alerted to this on Twitter the other day by Rich from The Line of Best Fit, I think.  Well, either that or it was the other Rich, formerly of The Line of Best Fit and now of The Quietus.  One of them anyway, and apologies to whichever it wasn’t, I never should have brought you into this.

Anyhow, the release in question is by a band called Sons of Joy, who have a three-song EP on their Bandcamp page for as much or as little as you care to pay for it.

The three songs are accompanied by a slightly mental manifesto, whose first point is simply “We hereby reclaim folk music.”  Umm, good, I think. It also includes a clause rejecting the copyrighting of music, or at least that’s how it reads, and another stating the following: “We reject the falsification of musical truths through multitracking or use of multiple microphones”.

I wonder how they feel about adding shitloads of distortion to, say, a violin track.  Because it kind of sounds to my (admittedly rather uneducated ears) like that’s what they’ve done here. Is that not ‘falsification of musical truths‘ then?

You all probably know how I feel about distortion by now, so that’s most certainly not a complaint.  In fact, it gives the music a belligerent demand for attention, which is only exacerbated by the rough screech of the vocal and the slow but angry thumping of the drums.  It’s not frantic music, but there is so much pent-up fury in it that it feels like a massive dam about to burst.

They are true to their word in the sense that this music seems to be pretty much just guitar, fiddle and drums, without overdubs, and it is indeed folk music.  But it’s screeching, sawing, tortured folk music of the best kind.  Of the kind, in fact, that would happily tear the still-beating heart from the shattered ribcage of the jelly-spined folk pop which sullies the name these days, and eat it in front of its grieving family. Awesome.

Sons of Joy – I Wouldn’t Mind Dying

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Rev. I.B. Ware with Wife and Son – I Wouldn’t Mind Dying (But I Gotta Go By Myself)

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The Honorable Worm – Wouldn’t Mind Dying

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