Pentangle - Disc of the day

Pentangle
Solomon’s Seal

(Reprise, 1972)

The last, lost Pentangle record. Beautiful in its simplicity.

This week is Folk Week on MOJO, and every Disc Of The Day will have a folk or folk-rock bent.

Before its reissue on Sanctuary in 2003, Solomon’s Seal was the forgotten Pentangle album. The band’s swan-song, recorded as the folk quintet were splintering, reviews at the time dismissed it as a lacklustre final bow and subsequent assessments tended to concur. But how many actually heard it? The initial vinyl pressing was limited and the tapes were thought lost for years, eventually turning up among a pile of boxes propping up John Renbourn’s harmonium. That it re-emerged in 2003, in the midst of new folk revival, was entirely fitting, as here was a Pentangle album that dispensed with the progressive genre-fiddling of earlier albums in favour of a midnight-clear sound that chimed perfectly with the sounds of Will Oldham, PG Six and the like. A mix of quietly spooked standards and road-weary originals, it’s a forlorn album, certainly; Jacqui McShee’s vocals on The Cherry Tree Carol and Willy O’ Winsbury are heavy with an ancient across-the-ages sadness while tracks like Danny and Bert’s composition No Love Is Sorrow reveal the melancholy, yet still-warm alchemy at the heart of this truly unique outfit.

Andrew Male

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 28/04/2008