A great British folk rock album, but that sort of thing often isn’t for me. After listening to a lot of this stuff you get a bit tired of the same medieval vocabulary and woodwind instruments. They take you to a certain time and place, which is great, but the more you visit a place the less exciting it is each time. Basically, Liege & Lief is just disadvantaged from me having been to that place too many times before listening to it.

Every once in a while the sensitive array of string and woodwind instruments can create a truly beautiful scene, but there’s nothing here I would describe as such. It’s fairly midtempo, guitar-driven more than anything else with the talented Sandy Denny doing a wonderful job on vocals (but again, everyone after her ripped off her style and made her less unique).

One thing this genre particularly excels at is telling a story. It doesn’t matter if it’s Fairport Convention or Comus, British folk rock tends to be very descriptive with each song telling a story. You’d do well to pay attention to the lyrics if you really want this album to transport you to another world as it’s intending. “The Deserter” is my favorite, the tale of an army deserter being caught and dragged back to his country to be executed. Just before the execution takes place, none other than Prince Albert shows up and demands the prisoner be set free, for “he’ll make a good soldier for his Queen and country” due to his courage.

This album and many others from its genre and era are storybooks really, and if you truly want to understand them I recommend you follow along with the lyrics, because they’re often the strong point. A fine standard for British folk rock.