The Imagined Village: Bending the Dark – review

(ECC)The folk collective overcome "difficult third album" syndrome with bravura playing and inventive songwriting. Once an unaccompanied Jackie Oates has delivered the antique murder ballad The Captain's Apprentice, the band concentrate on original compositions, using an array of tricky rhythms, dashing fiddles, mournful cello and winding sitar. Eliza Carthy's state of the nation Sick Old Man and the celebration of Wintersinging sit alongside the stately dub of The Guvna, the John Barryesque Fis...

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