Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is always a surprise waiting around the corner where the traditional folk songs’ sources come from, we may have believed with certainty that we have come across every conceivable place on Earth where the sound of the people, driven by their environment can be heard, and yet out of the blue we are proved wonderfully wrong.

For many, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland  are places of mystery, all but the hardiest of souls could convince themselves to go there as part of a holiday or even an expedition. Yet its history, the delicate balance between the sea which brings trade and the sparseness of the Canadian provinces, its sense of rugged beauty should be one of serene fascination, and because of its position, its native American influence, the territorial wars between France and England and even its name which honours one of the proudest nations on the planet, it should really not be a surprise that the Folk legends of Rum Ragged have stepped up and given the two provinces a prominent position in the world of North American folk music.

Gone Jiggin’ is a towering example that the Appalachian Mountain range does not have its own way when it comes to producing music that tells the tales of hardship and hope of the early settlers and the way of life that such proximity can have on the soul. Rugged, furrowed, and robust, the music is the truth of the appearance of the band, and with the album being recorded in downtown St. John’s it is true to its word of being invested in the area, not one for the call of the bright lights of Boston or New York, this is band of the people it represents through and through.

Rum Ragged but never showing signs of the tired and beaten, a lush road that takes in the traditional, the never heard before, the unique, and the fortitude of a genre that doesn’t understand or accept the phrase resting on laurels, and in their fifth studio recording, Gone Jiggin’ is a response to the distant shores that lay beyond the east coast and its terrain, and lays down a solid and chiselled look at the situation facing many today in that often forgotten area of the world.

Across tracks and ballads such as Paddy Hyde, Thomas Trim, Kelly And The Ghost, Lazy Afternoon, and The Viking Jig/West Bay Centre, history comes alive and the future is assured once again; for there will always be tales to convince when we learn that not everything in life is made for the fashionably moulded, but has everything to do with those that understand resilience.

Ian D. Hall