The Sleepers

The Leisure Society is the sound of a bunch of Brits doing the kind of big rousing choral folk music that Brits themselves invented to little fanfare back in the 1960s (Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band etc), but which US chancers like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes and Beirut (in a more eastern twist on the genre) have re-appropriated in recent years to very great fanfare indeed (at least in the music press). And I’m an absolute sucker for that sort of thing. As with the aforementioned Yanks, all the Leisure Society have to do is strum a few oddly familiar yukele/banjo/guitar chords with a flautist to their left and a bunch of harmonising chums to their right and I’m theirs to do with as they please. But my pro-folk biases aside, chief Leisure Socialist Nick Hemming actually has a genuinely interesting way with a rousing bittersweet melody and a voice vaguely reminiscent of Clifford T. Ward. When these melodies and vocal strains are augmented with a bunch of contented strings, vibraphones, guitars, banjos, finger-pianos, autoharps and rich harmonies it’s quite delightful really.