I wrote a mental letter recently. It read something I like this:
Dear Strike the Colours,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a Scottish folk band, yes? Well then… what the fuck have you got to be so happy about?
Love Matthew
Allow me to remove all rhetoric from that second question with a simple answer: the glorious listen that is Seven Roads. With this, the band’s second album, they have created as tender and lovely a folk record as you are likely to hear this year.
The instrumentation carries an extremely intimate simplicity, evoking images of warm nights by the fire with a hot mug of tea. This is especially evident on album highlight “If I Don’t Belong”, a sparse acoustic song so unbelievably pretty I can see it playing out an episode of One Tree Hill someday soon.
The true highlight of Seven Roads, however, is singer Jenny Reeve. Her beautiful vocals – delivered, as they are, in her own Glaswegian accent – add a feeling of honesty distinctly lacking in so much modern folk. Reeve’s vocals bring to mind those of Adele Bethel (of Sons & Daughters), though she sounds less like she wants to stab you repeatedly in the face and more like she wants to give us all a nice hug. This, coupled with her traditionally bleak – yet subtly hopeful – lyrics, keeps you hanging on every word, desperate to catch a whispered revelation.
If you heed my advice and walk along any one of these Seven Roads (see what we did there?), I promise that you too will be sucked in. And when you do, prepare to discover what I can only describe as one of the most charming, emotive and downright beautiful folk records of the year.
Our Verdict:
Matthew Healy is a musician and student in Edinburgh. 
