Husband-and-wife team Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman have many associations with the folk scene, notably with Lakeman's brother Seth and Roberts' fellow South Yorkshire siren Kate Rusby.
But Hidden People is their first album as a duo. It's a well-chosen blend of traditional themes and contemporary concerns, the former in the retributive haunting of "Hang the Rowan" and metamorphic tragedy of "The White Hind" – a girl transformed into a doe is killed by her hunter brother. The social themes are best handled in "The Ballad of Andy Jacobs" and the country-funk "Standing at my Window" furnishes the album's perkiest moment.
Download: Oxford, NY; Hang the Rowan; Standing At My Window
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