I’m invariably wary of bands who associate themselves with the neofolk tag: too many acts within the genre are politically dubious for it to be possible to approach any neofolk offering without the greatest of trepidation. And so I approached Serpentyne’s ‘Myths and Muses’ with due caution: after all, it does come housed in suitably heraldic artwork.
I needn’t have worried: despite the first track being entitled ‘A Rosebud in June’, they’re not the same kind of neofolk as Death in June, and instead, ‘Myths and Muses’ is an exotic pancultural folk collision that couldn’t be further from the iffy right-wing po-faced paganism pedalled by genre’s less desirable elements.
They look an odd bunch: like some hippie / LARP Sunn O))) tribute act, and manifold in number. Musically, they’re pretty odd, too.
‘Boudicca’ amalgamates Eurodisco and pirate folk to to create something unexpected, to say the least. Elsewhere, ‘Douce dame Jolie’, crosses Celtic folk with conventional rock tropes to straddle folk-punk and goth, while ‘Freya’s Firedance’ forges a 21st-century reproduction of a frenetic medieval knees-up.
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The inclusion of Serpentyne’s interpretation of ‘Gaudete’ is certainly interesting: they up the tempo and inflect the delivery with rhythms more commonly associated with Asian music and add a heavy groove that borders on bhangra. It’s a far cry from Steeleye Span’s rendition, and they’ve got no shortage of stylistic juxtaposition up their billowing sleeves..
‘Pastyme With Good Company’ deviates from the contemporised trad-folk format by coming on all 80s cop show, and you couldn’t possibly accuse Serpentyne of being predictable.
Serpentyne Online
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