About The Wicca Men -Albion's Darkness

A Musical Journey

London folk group The Wicca Men arrive with an album that draws on original and traditional songs, several written by folk great Ewan MacColl. Guitarists and singers Adrian Renton and Steve Lake were moved to make the record by current political events in Britain, taking the late Scots singer Nigel Denver as one inspiration for an album that is unashamedly packed with protest. Denver’s 1966 album Moving On, an old favourite of Renton’s, supplied several of the songs, including ‘The Big Hewer and ‘The Moving On Song’ by MacColl, and ‘The Ballad of Jimmy Wilson’ by Peggy Seeger. 

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Building on the tradition of folk protest come several original compositions, including ‘Goblins’, an unsparing look at the character and record of Britain’s current Prime Minister and key Cabinet members, ‘Young Winston’, a similarly abrasive portrait of Winston Churchill, while ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues In a Nation’ is a long-established song of complaint whose lyrics come from Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.  Among other songs come the self-written ‘The Mansions of England’ which deals with the historical theft of the Commons  and ‘Moonlight’ which reflects the human and emotional side of global military conflict and consequent refugee migration.

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The Wicca Men is the name adopted by the group of Adrian Renton and Steve Lake for the project, two friends who have played together for many years, though their professional histories are distinct; Renton was until recently a Professor of Medicine, while Lake has been a professional musician since forming anarcho-punk band Zounds back in the late 1970s. The Album was made in collaboration with multi instrumentalist Paul O'Donnell, who himself  has a long pedigree playing with such diverse outfits as Zounds, The Astronauts, Band of Holy Joy and Eddie Tenpole.

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Together Renton and Lake urge us to ‘Take Back the Commons’, and bring an end to the unrelenting privatisation of public property; the NHS, education, council housing and the green swards of Albion that once belonged to ‘the commoners.