HE’S always been an old head on young shoulders, Alasdair Roberts, interpreting and reinventing traditional music with a focus all of his own, drawing significant acclaim if not commercial success. Yet he is nothing if not dogged, and for this return to the ensemble format after his eponymous acoustic album in 2015 he welcomes back familiar faces Alex Neilson (Trembling Bells) and Stevie Jones (Sound of Yell, Arab Strap) for a collection of songs that fuse themes both familiar (animals, courtly love) and arcane (kenosis, Malthusianism). Recorded in Ireland, a loosely Celtic seam runs through Pangs thanks mainly to the presence of keening violin, which pairs perfectly with Roberts’s unembellished and willowy voice. Neilson’s contribution is a source of constant surprise, extending at one point to barking, while the guitar and bass parts play sprightly support to Roberts’s inventively literate words. With the trio setting out on a tour that takes in some of the UK’s less rockist towns (Barton-Upon-Humber, anyone?) there are clearly few expectations of Pangs making much of a dent on the public consciousness, yet in an age of dim-wittedness and monstrosity, you could argue an album such as this is needed more than ever.
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