While and Matthews' ninth studio album represents something of a musical event as it marks their 20th anniversary together.
In 2009, the two women were voted best duo in BBC Radio 2's Folk Awards and it's easy to understand their appeal to the UK station's mainstream audience.
Their stock in trade consists of story songs addressing broad issues of injustice and personal freedom conveyed through melodious arrangements and expressed in understated language.
The two singers and multi-instrumentalists were once members of folk 'super-group' The Albion Band and Chris While still has close ties with Fairport Convention for whom she has sung in the place of the late Sandy Denny.
Julie Matthews' voice is very similar to that of Mary Chapin Carpenter particularly on a track like Gone Girl Gone, a song about a woman moving on and leaving no forwarding address. Matthews' Yorkshire accent is only really evident on the closing track Under The Button Moon.
Many of the lyrics have a simple, unpretentious quality but the downside to this is that some dud lines slip through, such as "my ragged heart is drumming because it knows what might be coming" on Get Through This Somehow.
The songs also sometimes veer towards over sentimentality. This is particularly so in Heaven Is Changing, a song about the Derbyshire village of Eyam which was devastated by bubonic plague in 1665. While's words mawkishly humanise the tragedy by centring upon the plight of a mother's desperate attempt to save her baby from infection and ends with the historically inaccurate detail that "just one tiny child survived them all".
Three of the strongest songs relate to experiences during the two world wars. Drop Hammer is a tribute to the women who kept the Sheffield steel mills running while their men were away fighting and features a chorus of Yorkshire 'factory girls'.
Dancing Under The Gallows is a touching tribute to Holocaust survivor Alice Hertz Sommer who died early in 2014 aged 111.
White Feather was written by Matthews for Radio 2's series The Ballads Of The Great War as a "comment" on an organization established to shame men into fighting for their country. Those who did not enlist were handed a white feather by women and the song's stirring chorus "white feather, your blood runs yellow, why should another man die in your name?" means that it could easily be taken as pledging resonant support for this initiative. Instead, it is told from the perspective of an ex-soldier whose civilian clothes hide "the bullet wounds I bore" and therefore exposes the misconception that those who were not fighting were automatically cowards.
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In contrast to these heavier themes, there are upbeat reflections on the resilience of the human spirit and ageing in If This Were Your Last Day, which advocates not putting off your bucket list ("catching stars not counting them") and I Don't Know which philosophically reflects upon the paradox that "the older I get the less I know".
Four of the eleven songs on the album were written jointly. One of these, Mad Men, is not about the successful US TV series but documents how another breed of crazy males are doing irremediable damage to the planet by causing global warming and thus "choking on the footprints that we leave".
Although the duo have roots in traditional folk music, this album has more in common with contemporary pop and the strong harmonies illustrate why the bond between the two women has endured.
While the songs often stray into easy listening territory the lightness should not be mistaken for lightweight.
While & Matthews' website
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