Good Times Will Come Again

The seventh studio album from the enviably self-sufficient husband-and-wife team of Stu and Debbie Hanna, otherwise known as Megson, strikes a defiant note of contemporary relevance from the off, somewhat contrasting with their earlier albums’ fascination with history or even children's songs. Still boasting the characteristic bitter-sweetness of their striking harmonies, opening track ‘Generation Rent’ bemoans the fate of young people economically excluded from getting even a toe on the housing ladder. Further on, ‘Zero’ sounds musically as if it derived from some Teesside folk-song archive, its lyrics skewer the iniquities of zero-hour contracts.

Yet all is by no means doom and gloom. A message of steely resilience shines through songs with such self-explanatory titles as ‘A Prayer for Hope’ and ‘Pushing On’ and while the tone of the closing title-track may be heavily ironic, it nonetheless boasts a distinctly upbeat, eminently singalong chorus. They’ve come tantalisingly close to winning a BBC Folk Award before, with no fewer than three nominations over the years, but this one might be the album to push them over to a broader audience.