"Battlefield Band's Alan Reid and guitarist/singer Rob van Sante present an album of new Scots songs and tunes peopled with heroes, vagabonds, dreamers, zealots and workers, in other words, ordinary folk." That's what it says on the back cover, and it does exactly what it says on the tin; it adds that the duo have special guests: Alasdair White, Mike Katz, Tom Napper, Roy Whyke and Alistair Russell.
Yes, there are new songs, most of them Alan's compositions and just one trad number, a re-working of the old English song, the Bold Grenadier (or The Nightingale). Speaking of which, the first song on the CD is 54 Winters, Alan's telling of a tale of an old soldier, the highlight of whose life was his having been in WW1, and who spend the rest of his life talking about it in the pub.
There's nothing of the boozy and beery ballad treatment on this CD; the singers let the words tell the stoty and they're married to melodies that are just right, even memorable occasionally and reminds one of the French chansonnier; a sort of serendipitous 'Bogle meets Brell' scenario. The treatment given many of the songs is thoughtful and gentle, but that doesn't mean that here and there they're devoid of a bite that lays it on the line; for example, in his song, Ballantrae, Alan warns of "the bad blood" that turns brother against brother, with the result that "people suffer, folk like you and me". It's a theme he returns to again in two more of his songs, Covenanter and Across the Water.
But there's whimsy and wooping it up, too, in the songs and tunes, e.g. Belfast man, John Campbell, which celebrates the miraculous qualities of a concoction that not only "flew aeroplanes and fuelled trains", based A jug of Charlie's Wine on a song, it also "banished pills, relieved all ills and made redundant pain". One could spend a very pleasant evening indeed in the company of Alan and Rob, as they sing songs old and new, and set toes a-tappin' with dance tunes of their own making and others from the tradition.

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