Alasdair Roberts
The Amber Gatherers
Drag City

You know when you are living in a brave new world when one of the biggest young bands in America, the Decemberists, handpick an unassuming Scotsman who plays plaintive folk music as the opening act for their victory lap tour of the States. It stands to reason considering Colin Meloy’s unabashed love of the folk idiom, but considering the number of “folk” artists twisting the genre to their own ends (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom), it is a lovely gesture to have Meloy embrace a traditionalist like Roberts.

As he showcased on his last album, No Earthly Man, Roberts is a scholar of traditional folk ballads. On that disc, he took eight of his favorites and, with the help of friends like Will Oldham and Isobel Campbell, made them his own, adding a psychedelic tint to the songs’ pastoral visions. On his latest endeavor, all the songs are originals of Roberts’ but both the mood and lyrics hearken back to folk ballads of years long gone, rich with imagery and language that Meloy only scratches the surface of in Decemberists songs.

This isn’t to say that this album isn’t rooted in the here and now. There is Roberts’ backing group (featuring longtime cohort Gareth Eggie on guitar and erstwhile Teenage Fanclub member Gerard Love playing bass) who give even the most ancient-sounding rime a modern edge as well as those songs that appear to be touching on current affairs. One can’t help but think that Roberts is singing of either our head of state or England’s prime minister when, on “I Have A Charm,” he sings of “the very sire of Hell himself/rallying his bloody commonwealth.”

There will most likely not be a revival of the folk music explosion of the ’60s in our cynical modern era, but if there were, Roberts would surely stand at the head of the pack. As evidenced on this amazing and spotless album, he is a master musical craftsman whose lovely voice and guitar playing could very easily break down the hardest of spirits.