Always We Are Destroyed is a 2cd career overview of Leigh On Sea's Psyche folk band The Owl Service, who began life as a solo project for Steven Collins, who over the years has collaborated with Rachel Davies, Jason Steel, Katie English, Jo Lepine, Nancy Wallace, Diana Collier, Dom Cooper, Rebsie Fairholm, Martyn Kember-Smith, Alison O'Donnell, Charlie Skelton, Joolie Wood, Magnus Dearness, Naomi Browton, Laura Cannell, Liz Overs, Dorothy Chappell and Rebecca Leivers.
The first cd opens with Wake The Vaulted Echo a slow piano lamentation with mournful strings that opens out when the prog guitar flourishes take over, before calming back to a murmur.
By The Setting Of The Sun chilling out listening to nature, slowly bells chime and the sky darkens, thoughts become gloomier, while the supple sounds relax you, opening your mind to some reveries of dusks delights, a snare slowly beats the call to last retreat, another day is done before indistinct words are uttered bringing night once more.
The North Country Maid treats this classic English folk song sensitively, with the Maid singing her song once more, this sad lament still seems more relevant than it possibly should.
The Rolling Of The Stones is gentle bucolic memoires of a country fair, where The Rolling Of The Stones took place, with all the ancient folk dances bewitching you and causing a young swain to pull out his sword, the distress that follows leading to a psyched out guitar solo and acapella ending.
Hoodening takes place among the birdsong with mandolins and hand drums adorned by a sitar incantating the ceremony. Turpin Hero chooses to see the notorious rapscallion as more folk hero than villain, with the wench gently telling her tale of some of his deeds.
Katie Cruel is a confessional of a newcomer who was at first welcome and then once she earned her reputation became Katie Cruel, whose life is detailed to the sounds of the gentle folk with the odd psyche freak out for her most daring actions.
Night Falls twists and turns gently through the guitar and tambourine shaken gently a voice rises. A Lyke Wake Dirge slowly builds with the harmony vocals enticing you into this strange world of the Lyke Wake that still sounds as it once did, hundreds of years before the violins and electric guitar bring dismay to the event.
The Stone Bequest drones through your mind with strings carefully picked and plucked, guitar soars through. The Church Grimm that sits in Brno by the vegetable market, with its ossuary as grim as the dark tones, ringing bells, bass piano by more bones piled up, ancient capuchin monks laid out mummified skin turned black, a house of sombre stark reflection build by the architects Grimm and Grimm.
The Wooden Coat has you trapped within this sad lament, carefully enunciated over sparse strings an ancient tale is retold hoping you will follow her down to the Old Oak again to meet your fate.
William, And Earl Richard's daughter is a gentle Fairport style take on this classic tale of Robin Hoods adventures with Earl Richard's daughter and the threat of being hung from a tree for what he may do, making this a classic murder ballad.
Standing On The Shore looking out over the estuary once more, mud to the horizon slowly strummed memories of views and dreams for adventures on the other side, she witnesses strange things, even worse than the visions Joseph Conrad had outside of Gravesend, though this is no Heart Of Darkness it's hardly filled with joyful adventures on the high seas.
A Moor, A Moor, A Mire the bells chime and guitars slowly weave a path for The Moor wandering over the Moor besides the mire once more. Rise Me Lads gentle rise once more and allow this beautiful music lead you to me once again.
Drive The Cold Winter Away gives the witches spell for turning the seasons around, surviving winters privations, bringing sunshine and summer once more despite winters good cheer by the fire along with some beautiful music. Cold & Raw shimmers and shakes some bells for a tale of deals and daily life in ancient times whose bartered trade making sure all who need can have some barley.
Winter (A Dirge) is acapella fragile tale of misery in winter, the bells and resonating strings weaves a mantra within an evocation of the lyric, reducing to a tonal drone for the second verse carefully enunciated, the music only returning as springs first signs appear.
CD 2 opens with The Banks Of The Nile where Moses might have once more been abandoned in the bull rushes, but this old folk tale starts in Portsmouth where the pilgrimage begins, Nancy is once more adventuring hoping to find a husband in that foreign land. Ladies, Don't Go A-Thieving is obviously good advice, or you'll end up in Newgate prison if your caught, no amount of sweet violin will save you from the privations within that infamous gaol.
I Was A Young Man and finally they have given the men of The Owl Service a chance to sing a song, for the pains of growing up and finding that special young lady, along with other tribulations of a winters day, before he goes back to mummy claiming there are plenty of fish in the sea and monogamy isn't for him.
Willie O'Winsbury (Reprise) a forlorn horn laments poor Willie's fate. Fine Horsemen is a fantasy of a young wench yearning for that Fine Horseman in the tight britches to take her riding away over the moors, hoping your dreams can align and love will bloom over the sparse backing.
Spring Strathspey sees the trees bud and bloom once more while her young man holds your hand in that clearing, enticing you into his loving arms once more, while he does the merry dance.
The Red Barn takes us out to Ipswich for the adventures that happen in that Red Barn where the wench is mutilated and left for dead. Her father's wrath on finding the body cannot be contained merely within one old folk song.
The Widows lament how will she ever survive without her swain, how can a poor widow make ends meet in such tough times as these, the slow drum beat of despair follows her words as pure as the carefully picked electric guitar.
The Skater has a slow guitar line building like an old Trad Gras Och Stenar song, but with the crystalline female vocals detailing the poor fate of that soldier on his skates, falling through the cracked ice, while still searching for his fair maiden lost beneath.
Sea Song is a slow building journey across the waves we go once more, praying for safe passage, free from Pirates and storms. She Moves Through The Fair bewitching him with psychedelic guitars signalling the briefest of affairs, before she vanishes into the night once more, leaving him bereft and lonesome once more.
Edi Beo Thu Heavene Quene brings the ancient sprites back to life once more a questioning feeling of how her journey will lead to becoming that heavenly queen.
The Garden Gate is slow bucolic wonder at what happens on both sides of that Garden Gate, the perfect place for nighttime assignations and adventures. The Sea is beckoning once more, acoustic guitars chime to its secrets, off to your own hiding place, safe from those that chase you down, all the time you've lived and still you seek safe harbour from these tribulations.
Maids & Gentlemen will get up to all sorts if you let them, this tells the tales of some rum goings on, the maids are bewitched by the guitarist's flair and silk hankies, all sorts of other things rumbling through this tune.
Time Has Come for her to leave you once more, this is a gentle escape, softly tip toeing out the gate, leaving you to wallow in despair at her telling you never to think of her no more, when that's all you do all day long. Stars are calling you up alongside the tambourines and strings with a spectral edge.
Long Lankin is sung as a harmony vocal warning for all the evils that a woman may find, if they should spend time in Long Lankin, bolt your windows and doors for fear of this most determined of lovers.
The album closes with a trip to Brigg Fair taking this classic folk tale, setting it to a deep guitar tone and shimmering percussion, all the wonders of Brigg Fair are laid bare next to your true love.
Find out more at https://theowlservice.bandcamp.com/album/always-we-are-destroyed https://www.facebook.com/theowlserviceband
