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Let’s Have Another One is the third album from Leamington based folk rock trio Firedaze, and on this one they’ve upped the tempo, and the volume.

The album opens with Let’s Have Another One,  a rousing number with a singalong chorus that I can well imagine being played over the tannoy after every goal with the crowd joining in.

Drink To Your Health is a song about a pub (and drinking) and sets up much of the theme of the album. Steff claims that this is not a lockdown album, but I disagree; that’s exactly what it is, whether that’s what was intended or not. The songs may not be about lockdown, but they are a reminder of the things we haven’t been able to do because of it; live music, pubs, and friends

Drunken Sailor takes the traditional sea shanty and gives it a new spin, and plenty of drinking. The added verses are set almost to a Motown beat and I couldn’t help but imagine it segueing into The Supremes’ Keep Me Hanging On. This will go down a storm in the pubs.

The Brewery is one of the tracks that lifts Steff’s electric guitar higher in the mix, a stomping, rocky song.

Jenny Diver is about a notorious pickpocket who was supposedly the last woman to be hanged at Tyburn while Skol is about the Norse god Thor, but it’s also about drinking.

A fun album by a band who clearly enjoy playing together and I suspect are a lot of fun live. Here’s hoping that it won’t be long before their gig diary fills up.

Steven Lockley

This is an edited version read the full review on the FATEA website

Let’s Have Another One’ is an album we needed from such a band right now, just as the exuberance of live experiences & the joy of communal gatherings seem at last almost within our grasp. Although Firedaze are perfectly capable of exploring their more reflective sides (they consciously wished this new album to contrast with the slower, more jazz tinged predecessor ‘Ever After Land’ from 2014), this one tends more to the rousing spirit: the very spirited use of stompboxes in lieu of formal drum kits adds considerably to the primal energy which sits very closely under the beautiful melodic structures of the other elements of their sound.

Of the ten songs on the album, no fewer than four (“Drink To Your Health”, “Drunken Sailor”, “The Brewery” and “Skol!”) have very overt references to the pleasures of the bottle & so could easily be identified as a theme. This sounds like a band ready to resume the party.

Read the full review on the Hot Music Live website

There is a theory that the popularity of folk-rock is a cyclical phenomenon and that right now it’s on the up. After all, Home Service are talking about making a new album and bands are getting all the gigs they can use. Into this milieu comes Firedaze’s second album. Of course, Firedaze don’t label themselves folk-rock but they don’t label themselves with their full names either.

Firedaze is Jen, Steff and String. They write songs, record in String’s studio and release their albums and records by their previous band, Dead After Dark, on their own label. Their influences include Irish Traditional (Travellin’ has a chorus perfectly based on an Irish figure), rock, blues and jazz and something that once might have been klezmer. The key instrument is Jen’s fiddle which soars over the songs. String’s melodic bass playing and Steff’s guitar form the foundation but the band is actively looking for a drummer, which may give her more freedom.

My top tracks are ‘What I See’, ‘Long Time Dead’, the aforementioned ‘Travellin” and the almost instrumental ‘Drink’ but there’s enough variety here that you can find your own favourites”.
R2 (formerly Rock’n’Reel) – Sept/Oct 2014

Ever After Land by Firedaze – ever expanding directions of folk rock (July 18, 2014)

Firedaze released their first album, ‘Triality’ back in 2008 and delivered a thumping, driving dose of folk rock … and then there was a silence. Now the silence is broken with the arrival of the second album, Firedaze ‘Ever After Land’. Having just listened to their first album again and now this one, there’s a different feel to ‘Ever After Land’ – hardly surprising with six or more years between albums.

The drum barrage has gone, although String’s powerful bass remains yet somehow projects a wider scope to its range, Steff’s powerful vocals still carry the messages, while Jen’s razor-sharp fiddle cuts an unforgettable edge.

As the songs develop, whether hard-edged or soft, the solid though less-aggressive bass lines give the band a firm foundation over which to lay their vocals and harmonies and intense melodies. For those that know the band, there’s the familiar power and verve in tracks like ‘What I See’, the dance-driven ‘Drink!’ and the undiluted folk rock of ‘Friends Like These’. Then there’s a more mellow groove and subtler expression to tracks like ‘Angels With Broken Wings’, ‘Travellin’ and ‘Da’ in contrast to a darker and somewhat brooding side, evidenced through ‘Long Time Dead’ and ‘Dirty’.

Long-time Firedaze fans will find all they expect and more, those new to Firedaze will find the ever-expanding directions of folk rock can only benefit from albums like ‘Ever After Land’

“There’s a willingness to surprise and step outside the box musically on tracks such as the insistent ‘My Turn’ and the distinctive pleading opener ‘If Not Now, When’. They’re at their best though, when they play to their strengths as the stand out track, ‘Coming Home’, built around a pulsating bass line and infectious fiddle riff, shows.”
Rock’n’Reel, Vol 2 No.7 (Jan 2008)

“Firedaze recognise no boundaries of definition and clearly benefit from that view. … hear them once and that thumping throbbing drum sequence and bass drive, enriched with rocky folk-fiddle groove will stay in your head. It’s music for dancing, music for dreaming – … Firedaze take multiple musical threads to create a tapestry of 21st Century folk.”
(www.folkwords.com, March 2008)