Rolling into the crimson and gold leaves, steaming mugs, and creeping nights of autumn, The Strangers’ Share is the perfect, peaceful musical offering for a season where we turn inwards, cosy up on the sofa, and find ourselves gazing out at the mist for hours on end. The fifth full-length album by UK folk duo Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage is steeped in supernatural themes and dreamy tunes.
This wonderfully balanced mix of original compositions, traditional songs, and covers is raw, intimate, and honest, intakes of breath and guitar slides mingling with the rich melodies.
The eponymous ‘The Strangers’ Share’ alludes to a retelling of an East Anglian supernatural folk tale about humans’ relationship with the land, easing us gently into the album with a lovely layering of guitar lines, the kit rolling along softly. ‘Springtime Queen’ depicts an imagined meeting between winter and spring, the yellow and green of early Winter Aconite a common thread weaving through the song, tying together the two seasons. The flow is interrupted occasionally by surprising melody progressions, mirroring the lightning spell that flashes through the track.
In the traditional night visiting song ‘Lowlands Away’, the vocals envelope the listener with a beautiful yearning warmth as the guitar line dreams along in the background, comforting both us and the woman in the song who has just learned of the death of her lover. Taking up the mantle of love, ‘Magicians’ follows up with a tale of two lovers who transform into various animals so that they can always be together, through rain and shine and across rivers and hills.
The inclusion of ‘North Country Blues’ brings a personal touch – Savage was inspired by this track at a time when the blast furnaces in Port Talbot were closed and an entire community was left broken. It serves as a stark warning of how change can often leave working people behind, the darker intensity of the song reflecting the despair of singers and miners alike. The slightly uncanny melody of Lal Waterson’s ‘Fine Horseman’ creeps in cautiously like mist curling across the moors at dusk, its supernatural tones rather apt as we head towards the spookier nights of the year.
In contrast, ‘Morning Stands on Tiptoe’ bursts energetically onto the scene, the bright guitar and kit lines breaking through the moodiness of the previous track with an infectious joy. A cover of Dave and Toni Arthur’s rousing version of a traditional hunting song, this is an ode to dawn and light banishing the deep night.
‘Times Like These’ was written by Sanders about finding moments of happiness when you don’t quite feel right with the world, in little things like moonlight, flowers, laughing with neighbours or spending time with loved ones. In a world with such a vast net of stimuli and troubling news, these reminders are more important than ever.
We close the album with the traditional, simple, and timeless ‘Once I Had A Sweetheart’, dreamily floating along towards the contrasting, darker ‘Trouble in Mind’ by jazz pianist Richard M. Jones. First recorded in 1924, it engages with themes of suicide and depression, encasing them in a rich, warm melody – perhaps the ray of hope breaking through periodically like the sun the singer hopes will shine on him someday.
So take a few moments of calm for yourself, to reflect on the whirlwind of life around you, and let Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage help you find a little peace – at least for 40 minutes or so.