(((O))) Review: Rowan and Friends – Go On! Roll That Old Boulder Away

It’s no secret that I bloody love Rowan and Friends. I first caught them by accident at the George Tavern around three years ago and have stood dutifully front and centre at their London gigs ever since. The draw is always the warmth they emit. I find my ability to identify and label genre getting foggier with every passing year – whether that be a degradation of my articulation or the richening of musical stews that artists are cauldroning up – but I can always use a single word to reliably describe the Rowan Evans song-iverse. That word is ‘warm’. The buzzy rattle of his acoustic guitar; the welcome appearances from harmonica, accordion, trumpet, clarinet; the euphoric harmonies of Cordelia Hobbs; the unmistakable golden tone of Evans’ own voice: all is as warm as the brick hearth of a lit fireplace. The people you love are sitting around that fireplace on knotted wooden chairs and in each other’s arms. The lamps and your drinks and the light shining though those drinks are all amber-coloured. You’re probably in a pub and it’s probably raining outside. Indeed, the cover of Go On! Roll That Old Boulder Away features a sketch of Rowan and his eponymous friends around an enormous table together.

This image is, as well, a reflection of the startling ease of Rowan and Friends. Their delivery seems as casual as a busking-seasoned band that’s been pulled off the street, when the heft of what they’re delivering should be anything but effortless. The lyricism, in a kitchen-sink-ish style, spins such emotional richness from straightforwardness as to be envy-making. Lines like “I guess loneliness is not that loud” and “the call cut out when you said you didn’t love me / so I had to make you say it again” are breezed over within the first track, so you’d be forgiven for missing them. But by the time “it seems the longing’s in the cracks / of the vase you smashed onto the floor” is sung in the final track, your heart, if not entirely ripped from your body, is sure to be causing that painful/beautiful lump in your throat.

 

As he has addressed via his mailing list, Evans often includes “god stuff” in his lyrics (and album title). The religious content never alienates though; his reflections on his faith are honest, earnest, and open. He references his hometown York with the same loving reverence and specificity as Jesus. I’ve got as much experience living in York as I have living as a religious person; even as an agnostic Londoner, his lyrics only ever strike me as truth. As to where he’s sharing this truth, this record isn’t on streaming platforms besides Bandcamp; this quiet rebellion also fosters the sense of real community companies like Spotify exist to squash.

Sonically, Go On! Roll That Old Boulder Away, their second LP, is not a departure from their first, nor would you want it to be. Perhaps the main difference is the seeming increase in audible friends the ‘and Friends’ now encompasses – vocal harmonies being much more of a feature, and track five (‘One In Eight Billion’) being an out-and-out duet with Jude Brothers. Retained are the deliciously crunchy fuzz of the production and the furiously impassioned strumming that has sandpapered Evans’ guitar-front bare. All friends – bassist Ollie Howland, drummer Adam Holmes, guitarists Tom Burgess and Dan Lucas, accordionist Ben Crosthwaite, and singer Cordelia Hobbs – are as unified as family, as a joint entity, as if swimming in the same York river.

I would say that with this LP, Rowan et al. do roll that title boulder away, but they were never inside that cave. There is no great re-entering or re-animating with this record because there was never a hibernation or need to resurrect. Their collective warmth, light and talent is undying. This record can, from the sun-blinking outside, heave any listener’s cave-door boulder away, and pull up a seat for them at that big table.