FolkWorld #79 11/2022
© Jane Brace PR

FolkWorld 25th Anniversary 1997-2022

Reimagining the Folk Tradition

BBC ‘Best Album’ winners The Trials of Cato return with a giant of an album – Gog Magog.

One of folk music’s most rapid success stories, The Trials of Cato seemingly arrived from nowhere in 2018. They sent the folk roots world into a tailspin with a startling debut album that just a few months later clinched the coveted ‘Best Album’ title in the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

The Trials of Cato

Artist Video The Trials of Cato @ FROG

www.thetrialsofcato.com

The edgy verve and sheer originality of the Trials’ debut album Hide and Hair catapulted the Welsh/English trio onto folk’s centre stage as they served up adventurous new takes on the traditional folk repertoire whilst throwing down the gauntlet with their own arresting, genre-hopping self-penned tracks.

Now they are poised to release their sophomore album with a new band member and a renewed ambition which looms as large as the giant from which the album takes its name – Gog Magog.

Their back story is full of intrigue. Robin Jones and Tomos Williams from North Wales and Will Addison from Yorkshire formed the original Trials band in Beirut where they met while working as English teachers. Jokingly referring to themselves as “the biggest British folk band to come out of the Levant (ever)”, they returned home from Lebanon in 2016 and set about blazing a trail like no other on the UK folk scene.

Following the BBC win, the pandemic intervened and saw a line-up change with Will Addison departing and Yorkshire’s prodigiously talented mandolin maestro Polly Bolton joining, bringing a new dimension to the act.

It makes for a highly original instrumental mix – Bolton also bringing Irish bouzouki and clawhammer banjo to the equation to complement Williams’ acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keys and percussion and Jones’s tenor banjo, bouzouki and 5-string banjo. But it all melds well.

Packing a confident punch, the 12-track album was recorded in New York earlier this year by Donald Richard and Sean Boyd at Artfarm Studios and mastered by top mastering engineer John Davis at London‘s Metropolis Studios. It was Davis, who has worked with the likes of U2 and Led Zeppelin, that dubbed them ‘The Sex Pistols of Folk’ in recognition of the vigorous and revitalising energy the band is bringing to the UK folk roots scene.

Still flying the flag of folk music, Gog Magog sees the band pull harder than ever on the genre’s familiar frame to create something utterly arresting and modern. Capitalising on their enforced closeting during the pandemic, The Trials of Cato have undoubtedly evolved during this period, boiling down the energy of their early years into a bold new sound. The resulting album presents the broadest spectrum of their collective talents yet, a product of swallowing the folk tradition whole and completely reimagining it in a contemporary context.

The Trials of Cato

The Trials of Cato "Gog Magog", Own label, 2022

Inspired by their current surroundings the album title tune is taken from the Cambridgeshire chalk hills of the same name, trodden by the outsize feet of mythical giant Gogmagog. Towns, people and longboats are dwarfed by the yellow tunic-wearing Gog as he forges his uncompromising way across the album cover.

Says Jones: “The album has been a long time coming but we are so pleased with the result. Lockdown gave us a chance to really look at what we are about as a band and what music we wanted to create. We wiped the slate clean and challenged ourselves to create as much as we could without outside influences. Our beautiful and sometimes mysterious Fenland surroundings helped to realise this album and although we’re now delighted to be back on the road, this was a space in time that certainly helped us to create this music.”

Gog Magog is awash with a spray of styles, ranging from neo-traditional interpretations of Welsh language poetry to current-day plague songs, as well as unexpected instrumental explorations of the outer edges of folktronica and trad-jazz. Tying it all together is still The Trials' appetite for flights of adventure, anchored firmly by quality compositions and fabulous playing.

The release opens with Jones’ funky, percussive tenor banjo line of Paper Planes and the quirky, compelling voice of Bolton, with its faintly vulnerable air – a song for a friend facing challenging times.

The strident and intricate title track follows before one of the album’s stand-out compositions – their own modern plague song Ring of Roses. It’s a shimmering and dreamlike number fusing the trio’s sparkling strings and the breathy, haunting voice of Bolton.

The Trials of Cato

The mood changes as they dig into their Welsh roots with an upbeat interpretation of the Welsh poem Aberdaron - a heartfelt homage to the picturesque former fishing village at the western tip of the Llyn Peninsula with its mile-long sandy beach - an embarkation point for pilgrims on their way to the Isle of 20,000 Saints (Bardsey Island).

Aberdaron’s lovely outro is followed by the instrumental tour-de-force that is the Kerhonkson Stomp and the band then turn their attentions back to their current East Anglian homeland for When Black Shuck Roams.

Jones takes lead vocal for this ominous song. A key figure in the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire Fens and Essex, descriptions of the creature's appearance and nature vary considerably; it is sometimes recorded as an omen of death, but sometimes as companionable. The Trials’ treatment of this enigmatic creature in their song reflects that ambivalence - “When Black Shuck roams, you see murder through and through, but you don’t know that she’s just like me and just like you.”

The mood changes again for Boudicca AD 60 with Bolton spearheading the charge in this paean to the Queen of the Iceni tribe (the chariot-charging ‘Fenland Queen’ who fought against the Roman empire). “An ocean sang inside her stare/and fire danced in long red hair.”

The Trials of Cato

The Trials of Cato "Hide and Hair", Own label, 2018

The sweeping diversity of this album continues with the instrumental Dawns (Welsh for ‘dance’) demonstrating an incredible delicacy and a cobweb-fine lightness of touch which builds into an intricate aural tapestry.

The seductive I Thought You Were My Friend shows that not all relationships and indulgences serve you well – the percussive ebb and flow of this track demonstrating the Trials’ unique ability to push the boundaries of their genre.

The album continues with their take on Bedlam Boys – one of the earliest songs about madness, dating back to the 17th century – a perfectly judged sign-off.

Says Robin: “We’ve always loved the surreal vibe of this English folk song. It’s a tale of madness, fairies and giants and in our version we wanted to create a soundscape which captured this otherworldly energy. We’re huge fans of Steeleye Span’s 1971 version and the band were gracious enough to let us pitch-shift and distort a short sample which appears in the introduction to our track.”

Balls to the Wall is a feisty, defiant penultimate tune set that sounds like it could be right a home in a souk or Bedouin tent before Jones’s rich vocal brings in the final, retro-sounding As Green as You which features brilliant electric guitar from Williams.

Bursting with energy Gog Magog is savvy, slick and life-affirming music. Hypnotic, mesmerising and sophisticated it seems to roll up all the band’s diverse influences - from Wales to the Levant to East Anglia - and thread them into something thrilling, bold and unexpected. The album sashays and struts and transports listeners to other worlds as it takes giant genre-jumping strides to plough a musical furrow all of its own.

Three years on from that unforgettable debut album The Trials of Cato are looming large once more. Gog Magog is released on November 25 and The Trials of Cato are currently showcasing the album on tour.



Photo Credits: (1)-(4) The Trials of Cato (unknown/website).


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