The last time this oddball trio convened, in 2014, was to refit 19th-century whaling songs for modern times – hence their name. Here they do much the same for the ballads and broadsides that arose from attempts to forge a northwest passage through Arctic waters, notably Lord Franklin’s doomed expedition of 1845. The crazed mindset that undertook such a mission, and the hardships endured on icebound sailing ships, are evoked through contemporary songbooks (some printed onboard for entertainment) and the odd hymn.
The Kings are no conventional folk group, however. The booming baritone of Ben Nicholls (of the Seth Lakeman Band) is clearly “in the tradition”, but the space rock guitar of Richard Warren (ex-Spiritualized) and the jazzy shots of drummer Evan Jenkins (the Neil Cowley Trio) are not. The outcome, recorded in a Gravesend missionary church, is an album that shapeshifts from the solemnity of Reason’s Voyage to the shimmering dread of Song of Defeat and the gothic chill of The Reindeer and the Ox. Along the way comes Alouette (yup, that one), restored to the hypnotic charm of its Canuck composers, and conventional outings such as Song of the Sledge. A bleak but absorbing voyage through seafaring history.
