Customer Reviews

Horkstow Grange

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Maddy Prior has left Steeleye Span; you're sorry, I'm sorry,we're all sorry. Get over it! Now that we have that out of the way canwe bring in a little objectivity here? This is a FINE record! The interplay between Peter Knight's violin and Bob Johnson's guitar has never been better; Gay Wood's voice is terrific (can she sing like Maddy? No. And Maddy can't sing like Gay, either. This proves what, exactly?); Tim Harries is a gifted bass player with an original style; and it's always a joy to hear Dave Mattacks on drums. The songs are are among the best recordings the band has ever done. Particularly, to my ear, "The Old Turf Fire," "Horkstow Grange," Erin," "Bonny Birdy," and "The Parting Glass." And the more acoustic arrangements fit Steeleye really well; something they might have tried years ago! OK, "Lord Randall," while very well done, is lyrically rather depressing. Poisoning? Yecch. Still, it's a minor down check for this otherwise enthralling CD. I can't wait to hear more from this line up. By the way, you might want to check out Maddy Prior's "Ravenchild" and Peter Knight's "The Gemini Cadenza" (if you can find it). "Gemini" in particular is one of the more original and moving works I have ever heard.

Of the modern releases by Steeleye Span, Horkstow Grange and Time are probably their two best albums (though I haven't had a chance to sample Winter just yet).

Horkstow Grange finally gives us the titular song Horkstow Grange, from which Steeleye Span derives their name. Of course this should have been recorded years ago!

As I look back over the song list, I recall why I like this album so muc, the songs are all quite good.

Bonny Irish Boy was a lovely piece, as was Bonny Birdy, Erin [Gra Mo Chroi], and Old Turf Fire which was a lovely earthy classic with a good rock score behind it. Lord Randall was carried off beautifully, despite being such a dark song (one of my favorite dark songs, in addition to previous songs like Seven Hundred Elves, Long Lankin, and the venerable You Will Burn, which is my favorite 'dark' song). Of course I Wish That I Never Was Wed should be played at just about any wedding (as a light hearted send-off) or divorce...

Overall Horkstow Grange is my next favorite 'modern' release behind Time. Both are 99.9% pure Steeleye Span. So many great songs. And several have become absolute favorites on par with the classics.

Absolutely recommended for anyone who loves good music, folk music, and most of all a strong showing by Steeleye Span. I'd pick this any day over Bedlam Born or They Called Her Babylon.

Sometimes there's a song that overpowers an album. I have listened to individual songs on several albums for a long time before I realized that there were other tracks. I will only address "Horkstow Grange", the title song. I will probably listen to it until I get sick of it. But I can't imagine that. They sing this one a capella and show how human voices are an instrument. I can travel on this one into my heart and over to Nineteenth Century England. This guys are, and always have been, able to transport me to times long gone. In this one you can smell the dust on market day and see the rays of the dying sun in a town and time long before. There is no price for being touched like this.

I've loved Steeleye Span for a long time. I was sad to see Maddy go but this, I agree is one of their best efforts.

The Parting Glass is the only misstep I see here. They seem to have forsaken the lilting original melody in favour of something less tuneful. Still, it is finely wrought like the rest of the disc.

Someone one new to the group would likely find this an amazing, eye opening slab of music. Fan's of Dave's drumming with Fairport, Richard Thompson or on Nick Drake's "Bryter Layter" won't be dissapointed, either.

I have loved Steeleye Span since the mid 70's when I first heard Gaudete on the radio. Yes, their sound has changed over the years, and with whatever configuration they were playing at any given time. Somehow though, they always stay recognizable. Gay Woods is not Maddy Prior, but so what. She is a founding member of the band, and that seems to have brought them full circle in their music, back to more traditional interpretations of well-known songs.

The latest Steeleye Span release is the first without Maddy Prior, whose soaring vocals for so long helped define the sound of this venerable electric-folk band. In her place is the (as of 1994) returning Gay Woods, the other female singer who was there when Steeleye came into the world in 1969. She does a fine job here as Steeleye adopts a stripped-down, acoustic-textured sound reminiscent of its earliest days and utterly unlike the electro-orchestral production of its last outing, Time (1995). The songs, all but one traditional, are carefully chosen and perfectly set. There is more Irish music than one ordinarily associates with this very English outfit, but the Steeleyes handle it with aplomb, in creative reinventions that owe nothing to the conventions (and, on occasion, cliches) of the Celtic folk revival. For all its personnel changes over the years, Steeleye has seldom faltered. By now this traditional band has become a tradition in its own right. A lovely, well-crafted disc, Horkstow Grange is not to be missed.

Steeleye Span fans are harsh! Not all of them, but I've seen one-star reviews for most of their recent albums. And the thing is, although some of their mid-2000's albums may be only 3-star albums, I don't really get the criticims.

But this one (and it's neighbor in the 90s, "Time") I would rate amongst their best - yes, better than many of the 70s albums. This is actually the first Steeleye Span I owned, so I wasn't biased for or against inclusion of particular band members. And, it's great British folk music, it's great rock, it's great music. I really love it. So, if you want "All Around My Hat" or "Please To See The King", just listen to those albums again. But if you're up for some British folk rock that's its own kind of wonderful, here it is.

I find it hard to think of this record as being by Steeleye Span. Without the soaring vocals of Maddy Prior (to borrow another reviewer's phrase) it just doesn't sound like da Span. That said, The songs are interesting and Gay Woods is a fine Irish singer. The CD is well worth the replaying and the arrangements are quite intriguing. I found the Lord Randall to be the best version of that old turkey I've ever listened to.

Because I love their early work so much, I keep buying new Steeleye Span records, and I always regret it. You'd think I'd learn.

I was sorry to find that "Horkstow Grange" shares the flaws that make all Span's work after their first breakup so disappointing. The lyrics are purportedly traditional (though much-adapted, as has always been Span's wont) but the music is too often penned by the band. The songwriting hasn't been strong in any of Span's configurations -- you'd think *they'd* learn.

Robert Johnson (at whose feet I lay the blame for the weary bore Span has become) writes hopelessly ordinary melodies that drag down fine traditional lyrics. Gay Woods, working with the remnants of what was once a very nice, if small, voice, insists on bellowing in a way that exposes all her technical weaknesses. The men's vocals are relentlessly dull, as they have been since Tim Hart left the band a hundred years or so ago. All I can say of the bass and drums is *too much*! What happened to the pipes and fiddles of the band's earlier incarnations?

The title track is not awful, and it is the song that explains the band's name, but it's in such an abbreviated version that it's not much help. The lowlight is a truly atrocious version of "Lord Randall" -- it has all Johnson's trademarks of a bass-heavy, echo-y arrangment that obscure the lyrics without hiding the nothing-much vocal, and is all dreary pretentiousness.

No more -- this time for sure.

It's true that without Maddy Prior, there's an essential Span-ishness missing, but that's not the issue--I enjoy Gay Woods' singing well enough. No, the problem is that, for much of this album, the band sound like a group of deeply non-Irish people who have nonetheless fetishized Irish culture and ineptly tried to mimic what they see as its exotic or romantic aspects. Yes, I'm aware that Woods herself is Irish. That doesn't make it sound any different. I assume that they must have realized their mistake, because the band's subsequent Woods album, Bedlam Born (inconsistent, but overall not bad) thankfully does not continue the trend.

To be fair, Horkstow Grange isn't all bad. In particular, the version of "Lord Randall" here is fantastic; absolutely devastating. Very possibly the world's best version of this old chestnut. "Bonny Birdie" has a kind of quiet, bleary-eyed charm, even if the placing of two songs that start with "Bonny" in a row offends my aesthetic sensibilities. And finally, I enjoy "The Tricks of London," even if it's sort of silly.

But really, that's about all. Most of the rest of the album is superficially pleasant, but very shallow, and with a painful sense of artificiality. "Inoffensive" might be the best word--not high praise for any band, let alone one with a history as impressive as Span's. "Erin," "Queen Mary," "Bonny Irish Boy," "I Wish that I Never Was Wed"...no. Just, NO. And just HOW did they manage to scew up "The Parting Glass?" That really should have been a gimme.

But I'm saving the worst for last. It's not as though, compared to most of the rest of the album, the title track is especially terrible. But the thing is, if after all this time, they were finally going to record the song from which the band took its name--well, that was inevitably going to carry a certain symbolic weight. So, more so than anything else on the album, this song really, REALLY shouldn't be totally bland and characterless. AND YET...

I almost want to recommend Horkstow Grange purely on the strength of "Lord Randall," but in the end, it's really a completists-only affair.