I have to confess that it has been a long time since I have seen Barry Dolan, the man behind the Non-Canon moniker, play live, entirely my fault, but hey, you can’t be everywhere, not with my back, anyway. And most of those occasions were back when the mighty Oxygen Thief was his primary concern. Non-Canon began life as a diversion from the big and clever noise of its elder sonic sibling, but with Certain Stories, the project’s third album, it is clear that it has become a necessary outlet for one aspect of his songwriting.
And while Oxygen Thief appeals to the same part of my sonic heart that the likes of, say, New Model Army do, a heady blend of angular punk-folk meets alt-rock, Non-Canon finds me making a mental note to play my old Idelwild, The Bible, and Liberty Horses albums. And that is never a bad thing.
As “The Curse of Fatal Death” and its ticking beat and chiming glockenspiel lead us in, to be slowly wrapped in acoustic textures and shimmering percussion, it is clear that we are in a wonderfully considered and finely crafted place. And by the time sweeping strings and delicate piano have added a layer of decorous sophistication and the lyrics have flipped the ominous title on its head, you are smitten. Or at least I was.
“Just Me in the House by Myself” starts out as a spacious, almost stream-of-consciousness type of oration before heading into the sort of folk territory that Bellowhead once revelled in. “49456” proves that the indie-folk moniker can’t contain him, as it wanders through sax-infused, folk-jazz realms, “Permafrost” ebbs and flows between rocky understatement and big, ornate cinematics, and “Jool’s Annual Hootenanny” exposes the positivity and humour that has always been at the heart of the music.
If you want to see where folk music is today, at least that strain progressive enough to beat a path through neighboring genres, then Certain Stories is a great place signpost for where it’s headed. All genres must evolve, new sounds need to be formed, and genres are constantly melded and merged, as here subtly and supplely so, into new forms that are both familiar yet fresh. After all, most musical traditions started as outliers and upstarts, and this album is just the sound of music moving forward along those lines, delivering a wealth of clever and relatable lyrics as it does so.
Certain Stories will be available 28th November 2025
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