Troubadour Rose: Find an Arrow

The English folk-rock tradition has proved a resilient stream in the many waves of popular music. While Mumford & Sons, the current flag-wavers, carry the fight to the masses, London trio Troubadour Rose have, methinks, more modest aims and somewhat difference references. Driven by the enthusiastic playing of Lizzie O'Connor (fiddle and mandolin) and Gary Bridgewood (fiddle), the songs of singer and guitarist Bryony Afferson carry great energy and yet speak of intimacy in quaint language. Here's the opening verse of the title track: "Soft as soil are your feet/Velvet and moss is your conifer cheek/Berries and bones are the flesh that we mould/ Growing the world over and over we roll". If her lyrics have a sense of bucolic charm, Afferson's harmonies with O'Connor, as on Adeleine and Tell Me, add colour and imagination to the stripped-back instrumentation on this promising debut. troubadourrose.com
Download: Find an Arrow, Adeleine