Join Forces

The rousing harmonies are spot-on, the melodies are gorgeous, the bluesy banjo playing is nifty and there's some excellent old-time fiddle riffing: there is no shortage of things to admire about the seventh album from Southern Tenant Folk Union. The Edinburgh-based Americana crew are clearly an accomplished band with plenty to say: the songs sung by Rory Butler have questioning, rabble-rousing titles such as ‘What Would You Give for a Leader with Soul?’ and ‘What Kind of Worker Do You Want To Be?’.

The downside of this album has nothing to do with the band, the songs or the performances. What really lets this down is the mix. Rory Butler's voice just sounds too quiet, with a slightly muffled, veiled, fey quality to it: too often you simply can’t hear enough of the words. This is a real shame because there's clearly an impassioned, earnest message that the band would like to communicate here: several moments here suggest a bluegrassy equivalent of Dexy's Midnight Runners in their glorious prime. These songs are packed to bursting with uplifting harmonies and nimble instrumental breaks from Katherine Stewart's fiddle and Pat McGarvey's banjo; they ought to be a joy to listen to. There are some classic bluegrass-meets-Beatles chord-changes – particularly in the gorgeous swelling fiddle notes of the title-track – and you can’t help but ponder what heights this could have reached if a wünderkind producer like Andy Bell or David Travers Smith had got their hands on the tapes. As it is, Join Forces just doesn’t pack the punch that the songs and performances deserve. Lacking in articulacy and definition, it feels like a missed opportunity.