Crumbling Ghost – Crumbling Ghost – Withered Hand Records – WHR009 - ****

Crumbling Ghost's rough hewn debut is a glorious mess of Seventies British prog structures, needling Krautrock jams, gut-churning doom metal riffs, and spritely modal English folk tunes. Perhaps there's too many sketchy instrumentals, and second guitarist John Mosley's occasional vocals are somewhat tentative, but The Collector, sounding like the German space-heads Amon Düül 2 playing a Fairport folk epic, and Blasted Heath, a sea shanty with Quicksilver guitar parts, show the Norwich quartet are full of East Anglian promise.
File Crumbling Ghost alongside the similar but superior Wolf People, and Baltimore's sludgy Brit folk interpreters Arboretum, and you've the makings of a full blown Morris Metal movement. More please.

(31/7/11)