ALBUM REVIEW: Shovel Dance Collective – The Shovel Dance

American Dream

Released: 11.10.24

Space prevents me from waxing lyrical about the astonishing Shovel Dance Collective and their place in a wildly inventive burst of creativity in the folk scene.

Let this gorgeous, uplifting album tell you all you need to know. Starting with a stately – almost funereal – reworking of Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, we’re then blessed with an incredibly moving Merry Golden Tree – Mataio’s fathoms-deep voice leading the way – then a rousing O’Sullivan’s March, the delicate harp-driven The Rolling Wave, a spirited medley that incorporates a very different take on Newcastle than Lankum’s recent version, a mournful a capella of Four Loom Weaver and closer The Grey Cock, which starts out stark and melancholy and builds to a droning, aching crescendo. This, friends, is album of the year material. Unmissable, undeniable.