Big machine

"Not unlike fellow Brits Bellowhead, the Wayward Band injects a similarly robust brass and string pomp into Carthy's folk-rooted music, though with the undeniable rock edge that she often leans on. From the seductive big-band jazz and rock orchestrations of opener "Fade & Fall (Love Not)" to more Celtic-inspired fiddle romps like "Jack Warrell's (Excerpt)/Love Lane" and "Mrs. Dyer the Baby Farmer," Carthy deftly wields her rogue ambitions, making for an inspired creative partnership. While her fiddle work has always been sublime, it's the pairing of her potent Waterson-inherited voice with the Wayward Band's appropriately eclectic instrumentation that really stands out".

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"Folk music driven to the edge ... An extraordinary record where folk is simply the core to something far greater. This album sweeps across styles with the ferocity of a big band battalion; there are elements of the Oysterband, with whom Carthy has worked, but this is a step beyond. The Fitter's Song has the feel of a seafaring adventure, but with horns; Love Lane is a drum-pounding pastoral epic that unites frantic fiddling with the air of a Western gunfighter ballad; Hug You Like A Mountain (a duet with Richard Thompson's son Teddy) is an arm-waving anthem; while You Know Me manages to bring rapper MC Dizraeli into the stomping mix ... This isn't folk-rock, it's folk-rock'n'roll".

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"Four years ago, Eliza Carthy assembled a folk big band of distinguished friends to help promote her Wayward Daughter project. They gave some memorable concerts, and now - at last - all 12 have recorded an album together. It's remarkable as much for the quality and range of her singing as for the inventive arrangements. Most of the songs are traditional, and include a furious, edgy treatment of Devil in the Woman, a story of domestic abuse now driven on by brass and electric guitar ... Then there's a jaunty jazzy setting for Ewan McColl's The Fitter's Song, and Carthy's You Know Me, an angry and timely but uplifting folk-rock hip-hop response to the refugee crisis, on which she is joined by MC Dizraeli".

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"A twelve-piece band including the likes of Barn Stradling, Dave Delarre, Saul Rose, Beth Porter, Lucy Farrell and Sam Sweeney, brass-a-go-go and guest vocals from Teddy Thompson, Damien Dempsey and MC Dizraeli offers a surfeit of appetising promise by anyone's standards ... Comparisons with Bellowhead are natural enough, but even Bellowhead perhaps never quite mastered the conversion of an irresistible, all-conquering live appeal into recorded form as satisfyingly as this".