Given that many of rock’s most universally revered icons could at least partially be filed under ‘folk music’ – Dylan, Cohen, Nick Drake - it’s striking how rarely the genre attains genuine crossover appeal among those who’d gleefully hunt down reggae or blues obscurities. Its most rabid devotees often seem downright displeased with attention from outwith, while ‘folkies’ as a species are frequently, if snobbishly, perceived by the general public as baggy-trousered rustics with dodgy personal hygiene. Every so often, though, an artist’s sheer quality forces the rest of us to sit up and take notice, and James Yorkston’s arresting Just Beyond The River is one such opus.
Despite all my best efforts, this listener’s appreciation of folk never really extended beyond Luke and Shane, neither of whom were ever exactly darlings of the purists in the first place. This stuff could convert us at frightening speed, though. Edinburgh-based Yorkston sings softly regretful tales of painful love, drinking and loss with a wild windswept strength reminiscent of Chris Whitley or Tim Hardin, while a powerful backing band swoops and soars. It all attains a celestial magnificence on the opening ‘Heron’, with melancholic violins swelling up and burning beautifully, shining like flickering candles in the manner of the Dirty Three, prime Waterboys or (whisper it) vintage Crime. Nothing on the rest of the album quite lives up to the opener, but it isn’t a letdown either, with ‘Surf Song’ displaying Yorkston’s lyrical agility at it’s finest.
Sombre and introspective, Just Beyond the River perhaps invites the odd muttering of ‘lighten up, you miserable git’ – but then, so has most anything worthwhile that’s ever been served up for public consumption and mass misunderstanding. At three o’clock in the morning, beset by the iniquites of mankind, the cruelties of fate, the treachery of lovers and the crippling properties of whiskey, this album makes absolute sense.