Joshua Burnell – Live at The Crescent: Album Review

By Mike Ainscoe on 30th November 2023 • ( Leave a comment )

Joshua Burnell is on a roll – the ATB man of the moment heads out with a live recording.

Release Date: 1st December 2023

Label: Misted Valley Records

Format: digital

Becoming almost as big a fixture on the ATB pages as Fairport, Cropredy star Joshua Burnell and his band follow up an Autumn tour (we were at The Met) with a live recording from York in October 2022. It captures the band in fine fettle and showcases songs from the Glass Knight album well ahead of release.

Not dissimilar to what would become his Cropredy and touring set, Joshua is joined on stage by Nathan Greaves on electric guitar, Oliver Whitehouse on bass, Ed Simpson on drums, Frankie Archer on violin and Frances Sladen on vocals.

A healthy proportion of Glass Knight songs get a thorough workout – even opening the set (as he has done since) with Where Planets Collide before peppering new songs amongst the familiar and some ‘even newer’ unrecorded tunes, so we’re excused the lack of familiarity with Some Things Aren’t Eroded and Slow-Burning Cigarette; the latter showcasing a lovely lead vocal from Frances Sladen.

Of those new songs, the variety comes in waves from the epic Why The Raven Cries that might owe more to Joshua’s fol-y roots found on Into The Green and The Road To Horn Fair to the catchy earworm of Don’t Lose Your Faith and the Seventies pastiche on Lucy. Funny how we now look on those songs as familiar and an indication of the progression from those earlier days and how well they fit with the handful of songs from Flowers Where The Horses Sleep. From the latter album, Le Fay and the Sir Ian McKellern inspired Labels have that very contemporary sheen. A point where steps along a new path are tentatively forged.

His humorous intro to Plane Tree & Tenpenny Bit reveals a confessional in a trying traditional fiddle number that proved less trad than expected and ends up like “Peter Gabriel era Genesis.” Yes, there may be a nod to The Knife in the intro organ chords and a Trespass-y pastoral middle section (that’s also very Procol Harum-esque) but they are mere drops in a fiddle-dominated pond. Partnered with a raucous Tam Lin, the needle heads toward the red at the Folk end of the spectrum.

It’s apt that Moonlighter’s Child ends the set. A song about the end of a journey and decisions about the next steps, It’s another nod to several of his heroes who paved the way and delivered in a resigned Roger Waters style. Just listen to the “I can’t help but feel, that nothing is real anymore,” and the two chords that follow.

It’s a joyous live set on home turf in front of a partisan crowd. The folk-fused Baroque and roll – with a branding declaring “too Prog for Folk and too Folk for Prog!” – bus rolls on!

Here’s Joshua performing at Cropredy in August 2023: