Man the Lifeboats - Soul of Albion

Having enjoyed London based punk-folk band Man The Lifeboats  two years running at North Norfolk’s Deepdale Festival, I still carry the memories of that brick barn filled with voices repeatedly singing back the chorus of ‘Carry Me Home’ (from their first album ‘When The Time Bell Rings’). You can imagine, therefore, my excitement at receiving a copy of the band’s new studio release, ‘Soul of Albion’.
 
Man The Lifeboats’ brand of raucous good-time social conscience will inevitably draw comparisons with names likes Bellowhead, Oysterband, Levellers, and Pogues. Much of their success is down to charismatic lead vocalist and songwriter Rich Quarterman, whose vibrant on-stage band persona  masks a gentler and more romantic side (try giving ‘Carondelet’, his own solo album, a listen). However, add in the banjo and accordion of Aaron Horlock, the fiddle and whistles of Dan Gilroy, the drums and percussion of David Vaughan, garnish it with Sam Barker on bass, and you have a band that prepares a stomping musical cocktail of alchemic proportion.
 
‘Soul of Albion’ is an album unafraid to reflect on the state of the nation, and yet still manages to convey the band’s love of a good time and a drink – they were, after all, conceived in a shanty-punk folk moshpit at The Garage in Islington in 2016. It is a collection that sets out to put the musical fire back into the bellies of those who believe that there are things in this country worth standing up for.
 
From the opening bars of ‘Born Drunk’ to the stirring conclusion of ‘A New Jerusalem’ we are taken on a journey that jostles us from our apathy with ‘The Fires of England’; leads us through the streets and bars of North London’s ‘Somerston’ and ‘County Kilburn’; and revisits Cambridge’s legendary ‘Stourbridge Fair’. ‘The Cuckoo’s Nest’ is a short banjo-led instrumental that then leads us into the album’s pensive title track.
 
A couple of lively dance tunes make way for the anger and frustration of ‘Nobody Home’ and then a wonderful celebration of ruby ale in ‘The Ballad of Sarah Hughes’.
 
Not many albums leave you thirsty for more. ‘Soul of Albion’ is one such album.
 
9/10