The Trials of Cato
Got Magog
Self-released
★★★★

SINCE their debut album Hide and Hair in 2018 this Welsh/English folk trio have been making waves on the folk scene winning the Best Album title in the 2019 BBC2 Radio Folk Awards.

Since then, the pandemic intervened as well as a line-up change with mandolin player Polly Bolton replacing Will Addison. Taking the title tune from the mythical giant of the Cambridgeshire chalk hills this new album is an intriguing mix of folklore, history and modern-day reflections of our current times.

Myth and legend are to the fore in When Black Shuck Roams and history in Boudicca AD 60 a paean to the Iceni queen. Ring of Roses is a modern-day plague song following the pandemic and there is also a raucous version of the 17th-century song Bedlam Boys.