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This is Steve Knightley's, the songwriting force behind Show of Hands, first solo album in seven years. His songsmithing skills really do bring to the fore his great talent. I loved it.  I've played it over and over. I highly recommend this album for those that love good songwriting. They will make you laugh and cry.

The inspired, eagerly-awaited and stripped back Cruel River has was showcased on a rare solo UK tour through May – also his first in seven years.

Just days after Show of Hands’ third sell out “Big Gig” at the Royal Albert Hall at Easter, Steve and his multi instrumental partner Phil Beer temporarily went their own ways - Phil on a lengthy UK tour and Steve on a 25-date tour with special guest Jenna Witts, whose debut solo album Barefoot and Eager he has just produced (release July  30).

Singer songwriter Steve, whose rock style rant Country Life and anthemic, rallying Roots were both nominated for Best Original Song at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, was recently called “one of England’s greatest singer songwriters” by Radio 2’s Mike Harding while MOJO critic Colin Irwin said: “Steve Knightley’s songs have developed such an edge it’s hard to deny them any longer” and HMV Choice praised his “highly literate, original songs.”

So successful have Show of Hands become in the past 15 years, it is sometimes easy to forget that both Knightley and Beer are also brilliant performers in their own right with Knightley renowned for his soaring “windswept” vocals and impressive playing of a host of instruments from acoustic and tenor guitars and mandocello to the distinctive South American cuatro.

Knightley, who has penned the majority of Show of Hands’s vast repertoire, unveils a slew of new songs on Cruel River, his first solo album since Track of Words in 1999. The 12-track album, co-produced by Steve and Mark Tucker at Presshouse Studios in Devon is a richly diverse acoustic offering, beautifully understated and fielding more of Knightley’s famously cogent lyrics and unpredictable chord sequences.
 

One of the roots scene’s most savvy songsmiths, Knightley melds a bundle of themes, emotions and “tales of the unexpected” on this album – West Country and English strands again loom large, with a witty look at sheep rustling in Transported and tongue-in-cheek humour in Raining Again with his mischievous mention of incomers’ weariness with “some folk rock band banging on an on about country life”!

Knightley’s sense of place continues in the title song about Dartmoor’s River Dart where he recalls swimming as a child and hearing the ominous local saying “River of Dart, River of Dart, every year you claim a heart”.

There’s a surprise French waltz style version of one of Steve’s best known songs, a revamping of his chilling Crooked Man and the powerful and poignant Poppy Day- an alternative take on the potent symbol of remembrance. There are also inspired covers of esteemed Canadian folk and country veteran Gary Fjellgaard’s Caragana Wind and, as a bonus track, a riveting live recording of Mark Knopfler’s classic Romeo and Juliet which has gone down a storm in live performance.