Wire Worms emerged from the Leeds underground scene in 2023. The six-piece seek to explore European folk music in a manner that “…delves deep into tradition but isn’t shackled by it” (Louder than War). Drawing from black metal, experimental noise, and prog rock, Wire Worms consciously avoid a re-treading of “folk revival” groups, instead seeking to shape traditional material into something entirely their own. A firmly northern group, with the voices of Newcastle-born Jasmin Brown and Manx singer Luke Carroll at the forefront, the Wire Worms line-up draws from members of Tristwch y Fenywod, Hexham Heads, and Sh!t Theatre.
Beneath the Eildon Tree continues the Wire Worms method of disassembling folk songs and medieval literature, only to rebuild them in a manner that extricates both the strangeness and ongoing pertinence of these ancient songs and texts. The album explores Prophecy and Madness within the traditional music and poetry of Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. It follows the figure of Thomas the Rhymer through unfolding eschatological visions, as expressed across 800 years of musical and literary traditions.
The thread which binds these different prophecies is Millenarianism: the desire for the world to be made anew and with it all imperfections banished. It is an ambiguous utopianism within which lurks a desire for destruction and metamorphic violence; the new world can only be born through the death of the old.
(WARNING: Video contains strobing imagery between 3:53 and 4:22 mins)
Beneath the Eildon Tree is released on July 31 2026 via Cruel Nature Records and can be pre-ordered here on Bandcamp
