Search - Trembling Bells :: Carbeth

The Ghost of English Electric Folk Past

Lee Barry | Indianapolis, USA | 05/19/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"OK, I'm old enough to remember Nick Drake and Sandy Denny when they were alive, and I read the rave New York Times review of Trembling Bells, bought it, and indeed, it is what the review promised--the second coming of the sort of stuff that Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Albion Band used to do. TB's Lavinia Blackwall is a Jackie McShee-type of soprano and the album itself reminds me, not to be too obscure, of "Mellow Candle"--literary, rambling lyrics with a 19th century sort of sensibility, drums, strummed electric instruments and so forth. A trombone gives some nice bass bottom to it. There are, to me, two stand-out tracks, "When I Was Young" and the title track "Carbeth." The latter is truly affecting and wonderful. Among the groups invoked as Trembling Bells' influences in the NYT review was Pentangle, whose "Basket of Light" album still sounds superb, start to finish. Well, this is no "Basket of Light"; I don't find "Carbeth" to be a CD that I can listen to in its entirety, over and over--I quickly began picking my way through it--but parts of it, especially those two tracks, will stand up. It will be interesting to hear their second, if they do one. Nevertheless, if you liked this kind of stuff in the mid-seventies, this debut is worthwhile."