Trench Songs

You might think an album of trench songs, featuring lyrics written by soldiers in World War I, would make for sombre listening. But while Trench Songs isn’t exactly happy-go-lucky, it’s both highly listenable and, in its own way, uplifting. The latter is in part because it’s a healthy reminder of hardships previous generations have faced, but also because of the strength of performances and arrangements.

The fifth release by Vancouver- based, self-described ‘folk collective’ The Fugitives, Trench Songs is a largelyacoustic recording with songs that move from sardonic to sentimental, the soldier-penned lyrics set to original music by the songwriter duo of Adrian Glynn and Brendan McLeod. There’s both poignancy (‘If I Could Turn the Clock Back’) and black humour (‘Never Mind’) to be found, the latter reflecting the genre’s tendency to parody popular songs of the day. The source material is rich (as the War Museum of Canada puts it, World War I was ‘a singing war’) but the words are also given new and spirited life by The Fugitives.