Shoot Them All! (Box On Her Head) - Pilgrim's Way
We find ourselves in sunny Stockport today to meet our next LCM featured artists the off the wall, colourful, energetic Trad folk band Pilgrim's Way. With influences starting in early music, passing through Playford and the Morris traditions, picking up prog, soul, and pop, it's impossible to categorise the sound they make as folk music is fed through their unique steam driven sound-mincing engine.
One of the things we like about trad folk is that you can take a dark murder plot that wouldn't be out of place in a Quentin Tarrantino movie and then add a jauntly, upbeat and joyful tune to it. Our LCM #SongOfTheDay is a great example. 'Shoot Them All! (Box On Her Head) is the lead single from the band's recent album 'Stand & Deliver' (although not produced by the dandy highwayman) released in October last year. Having killed a highwayman in self defence, a girl gets taste for blood and murders three more, thereby pre-empting the plot of 'Dexter' by several hundred years. We also love the hurdy gurdy :)
Formed by default under a Stockport pub table in early 2010 by Ed, Tom, and past member, Lucy Wright, Pilgrims' Way has grown to incorporate a dazzling array of instrumentation and millinery. With the extraordinarily omni-skilled musician Jon Loomes (22 instruments played on Red Diesel!), and champion Renaissance woodwind parper and oboe wrangler Jude Rees joining along the way, the prospect of an early night is slim.
No cow is too sacred, no juxtaposition too ambitious. Pigeonhole at your peril. Wear a yellow carnation in your buttonhole. Password; 'How's your father?'
Off the back of acclaimed albums 'Wayside Courtesies' (2011) and 'Red Diesel' (2016) and 'Stand and Deliver' (October 2017), the band are out on the road again. Prime the mild pump, waterproof the revolving mirror ball, and strap on your dancing trousers!
