Embrace United Bible Studies in a new found burst of accessibility, easier on the ear, if still avoidant of the mainstream.

Release Date : 5th September 2025 (CD & Vinyl at a later date)

Label : Talking Elephant/Hobby-Horse

Format : Digital / CD / Vinyl

ELDRITCH FORCEFIELD

Given it has been said that, “The music of United Bible Studies always emanates from a place where primal, slightly dangerous forces live,” you will either be slightly repelled by the idea, or drawn in inexorably to their eldritch forcefield. Another description is free-flowing folk-drone-jazz-noise outfit!

More a collective than any orthodox arrangement, there have been upward of 200 contributing members and, apparently, nearly half that number of releases. (Trying to confirm that citation, there are 40 recordings available, on Bandcamp and 37 listed on Discogs, so, if you add in unofficial and others, it seems all feasible, if over a matter of 24 years.)

Started up by David Colohan and James Rider in 2001, whilst at university in Dublin, there is a parallel with the similarly inclined ethos of Steven Collins’ The Owl Service. That sense of fluidity is maintained by Collins being one of the three key contributors here, along with Colohan and Alison O’Donnell, another frequent collaborator, for of each of them, in both bands. Yup, Alison O’Donnell, who, as a pre-pubescent teen was also a member of Dublin iconoclasts, Mellow Candle.

O’Donnell has over 50 years of singing behind her, more often than not on the fringes of what counts as popular folk music. Scratching her itch away from the mainstream, she has dipped in and out of U.B.S. as the moment takes her. Collins has maintained The Owl Service as his own personal fiefdom, a cottage industry. Initially a functioning band, he is as now likely to be fashioning complex studio concoctions alone, playing anything and everything as the whim grabs. Colohan already has his hands full, holding the many tentacles of U.B.S together, nominally and notionally in charge.

WYRD OF THE 60’S

For all that wyrd bewonderment, when it starts, it is all deliciously orthodox. Circles And Chambers opens the show with repeated electric piano chords, in a pleasing sequence, together with a muted rhythm section, the whole progression of the sort sometimes described as Beatle-y. As O’Donnell starts to sing, the clarity of her delivery, in received pronunciation at that, comes as a shock, she sounding like a youthful Marianne Faithfull, when her history in music might have you expecting the cracked tones of the older Faithfull. It’s a brief shock, mind, if taking a moment to appreciate it is the wyrd of the 1960’s they are tapping, Dr Strangely Strange and the Incredible String Band, when women tended to sing in that way. As the chorus chimes in, with a flourish of grouped vocals, fiddles and more, it all becomes grander, with a tumbril beat to maximise the old ways.

BUCOLIC BRASS & CHORAL HARMONIES

Gather Words For The Fire is then a stately hymn, very Wickerman, with bucolic brass, and choral harmonies. I am uncertain how much is real and how much is studio synthesis, but it makes for a rich tapestry that gathers you in, like wood, if not words, for the fire. I am guessing it is Colhan singing, as it is his composition, not that it always holds true, even if O’Donnell tends to sing hers. Be that as it may, it is a vibrant and manly voice that encroaches on baritone. Collins is responsible for arrangements and most the instrumentation and FX; if you pop over to Bandcamp’s Owl Service pages, you will see he has an impressive array of kit.

Old Legra glides in on strummed electric guitar and flute, with solid drums of a folk-rock persuasion. Legra is the old name for Leigh on Sea, now subsumed into Southend, and home of one of the UK’s largest, if largely unsung, free folk festivals. (And, no, UBS weren’t performing this year, but The Owl Service certainly were.) The song is very Span-ny, after drums but before Mike Batt became involved, especially as it drops into acapella.

GORGEOUS TANGIBLE MELLOWNESS

That momentum maintains for the similarly constructed Lilac Haze Of Lavender, the electric guitar tuned to circa 1970, with some neat little pinch harmonics from Collins. Any thoughts of O’Donnell sounding too pristine are long gone, and I am getting, now, a distinct flavour of Trees, the band, and it has a gorgeous tangible mellowness. “In the arms of Lewes, o, in the Lewes Arms” couldn’t be a more inviting lyrical salvo for In The Arms Of Lewes, given I grew up in that town, and first wet my teenage whistle at the Lewes Arms pub, attending also the Folk Club there on many a Saturday night. It is a grand song, mentioning Wilmington’s Long Man amongst other local points of reference. Another of Colohan’s, he gifts it with gusto.

Round about now, and with a run of guitar, fiddle and drums confections, the pleasure this record is giving becomes cemented. The processional chanting in Hoist The Drawbridge may seem also Lewes related, with the castle on the mound, but it is actually about evading a stalker. As is You Often Hid, which is almost blues-rock, if with a slightly overwrought and angsty vocal. Each songs of O’Donnell’s experience, that instils the proportion of her delivery, which drifts toward the Hazel O’Connor-y.

A CATCHY CONCISE CRITIQUE

Facebook tells me it is Collins taking at least part the lead vocal for On Silbury Hill, which is a disjointed paean to the prehistoric man-made structure. It’s the shortest track here, which, for me, was welcome, it sitting uncomfortably with much the bulk of this album. But, as it gets followed by the commercial sheen of Roar No More, with chiming and clanging guitars, over which her voice and some thick and resinous fiddle float, all is forgiven. A song about Ireland, it is catchy and concise, if not without critique of her homeland. Collins also seals the song with a sinuous smear of soloing, on electric guitar.

Colohan’s final composition is another dedication to ‘Old Albion’, Til The Worm Turns, which starts off unaccompanied. A brusque “hah”, ushers in his co-conspirators, that tumbril beat returning, with, under their voices, a quavering prolonged fiddle stroke. I love this aspect of their MO as much the more plain-sailing electric folk that is on display here. Nerano then offers the third strand, marching in on a bed of melodeon and/or harmonium. with a chirpy cheeky chappy vocal, reminiscent of the more whimsical end of the Kinks, if played in a circus processional. John Otway and the Unthanks, perhaps? It sounds as if it should be awful with that description, especially with the duddly-i-dee-o chorus, but isn’t, contriving somehow to be quite charmingly hypnotic, even as it sits alongside On Silbury Hill, stylistically.

UNEXPECTEDLY ACCESSIBLE

The closer is a murder ballad, that perennial staple of an Anglo-Irish folk tradition, or that is what O’Donnell tells us, anyway. This has a consummate Albion Country Band/No Roses type arrangement, with O’Donnell’s chameleon now seeking to be a purer voiced version of the younger Shirley Collins, who is, by the way, Lewes’s most famous resident, don’cha know. She doesn’t quite capture it, but it bookends this unexpectedly accessible album perfectly, with the main sustenance coming in the middle.

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