Some albums wear their roots openly. Others carry them more quietly, allowing where they come from to influence the music without letting it define what the music has to be or say. Rusty Shackle’s Mayfield sits firmly in the latter. Despite the folk-rock label attached to the Welsh band, I found very little that felt folksy. This is a rock album. An album that looks back toward the sounds and experiences that shaped the band, but keeps their feet planted in rock.
That becomes apparent early, as the guitars and drums give the record a sense of strength and determination rather than the lighter and more traditional qualities one might expect from a folk record. The heavier sections have a gritty quality to them that gives the music weight without turning it into something overly aggressive. There is a physical confidence in the way the band plays, particularly when the guitars are allowed to take up more space.
The album’s connection to home is perhaps easier to understand through that lens. Mayfield takes its name from the place where Rusty Shackle developed their sound, and there is a sense throughout the record of a band looking back at the things that shaped them. But the music doesn’t spend its time recreating the past. It instead reaches toward the classic rock of the 1970s by allowing influences to become part of the album’s vocabulary.
“Swandive” and “Calico” are two of the songs that make this approach effective. Both have the kind of catchiness that makes one want to play them on repeat. Their melodies settle into the head and there is something satisfying about a band knowing when a tune simply works and allowing that to carry the song.
The vocals shift according to what each song requires. At times there is strength in the delivery, elsewhere a sense of nostalgia or conviction, but it is the harmonies that give some of the lighter passages their character. Instead of pushing the songs toward a folk identity, they add another layer to the classic rock influence. One that recalls the kind of vocal interplay that could sit comfortably alongside the guitar-driven arrangements and a stack of amps.
That balance is particularly clear on “Riders of the Purple Sage” and “The Pearl and the Rainbow”. Both have guitar solos that have a 70s rock character and their looseness allows them to become more than another part of the arrangement. The chorus and harmonies give the songs that memorable groove and infectiousness and makes them difficult to sit still through.
The album carries ideas of home, growing older, friendship, and belonging without needing to dress itself in the musical language one might expect from those themes. Mayfield may be rooted in where Rusty Shackle has come from, but its musical identity is connected beyond that. Being Welsh doesn’t automatically make music folk, just as drawing from traditional influences or using particular instruments doesn’t define an entire record either.
Across all fourteen tracks, there is a toe-tapping and head-bobbing vibe that has been created by the combination of harmonies, guitar solos, choruses, and grooves that could have wandered straight out of the 1970s. What Rusty Shackle have made feels much more like a rock record that is infused by where they have come from and one that occasionally glances toward the musical past that helped shape them.
Catch the band live
- 06/09 – Bunkfest – Oxfordshire
- 19/09 – Days In The Sun – Gloucestershire
