Tanglefoot

A rollicking brand of folk music that is taking the UK festival circuit by storm, and has been for years, just happens to be a home-grown group of local artists who understand the value of adrenaline to a crowd. This release is the crowning glory of their five studio albums, kicking with the same legendary passion true to their fiery reputation for exploding live. Recorded over three nights at Toronto’s Flying Cloud Folk Club in 2003, it marks a new era in the band’s history as founding, fiddling father, Joe Grant, moves on and Terry Snider assumes the position. Yet this highly charged sextet is more about collective energy than it is individual contribution, which is how they’ve managed to evolve from a trio of period-costumed folkies in the ’80s into a highly combustible juggernaut of new traditional, high-energy folk that bowls over new fans with each performance. Despite the changes in personnel and direction, Tanglefoot remains a tightly-focused band who add brilliant instrumentation and impeccable harmonies to their rich catalogue of melodic songs that mix Canadian history with real life and everything in between — all delivered with a high-torque energy and tongue-in-cheek vibrancy that, in the case of Captured Alive, doesn’t quit for a full 74 minutes. Somehow, I can hear Stan Rogers laughing his head off.