The Shovel Dance is the most powerful release to date from nine-piece folk group Shovel Dance Collective, bringing studio fidelity and trickery to the rich arrangements and soaring vocals of their concerts. Their new album revolves around the group’s interplay and close listening, no matter how many members of the band play on a given song or how many instruments feature (there are twenty-five instruments and eight voices). With production by Mike O’Malley (caroline) and mastering by Matt Colton (Thurston Moore, Laura Marling), they give their arrangements an experimental edge—as close to Scott Walker or Swans as Shirley Collins or Bert Lloyd—that situates them on the bleeding edge of folk music, with unique beauty, force, and political charge.
