05 March 2026

THE OWL SERVICE – Always We Are Destroyed (2026, 2CD, Hobby-Horse)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Hobby-Horse

Format: 2CD, Limited Edition (comes in gatefold card sleeve with fold out insert. Initial orders include a limited edition postcard set)

Release Date: 29 May 2026

Two decades on from its humble beginnings, The Owl Service remain one of British folk’s most enigmatic and fiercely independent forces. Emerging in 2006 as a solitary bedroom experiment by multi-instrumentalist Steven Collins in Essex, the project gradually evolved into a fluid collective of voices and collaborators, its revolving cast as restless as its ever-expanding catalogue. Aside from brief alliances with labels such as Southern Records, Static Caravan, Reverb Worship and Fruits de Mer Records, the band has largely carved its own path, embracing a self-sufficient ethos that has cemented its reputation as perennial outsiders within the alt-folk underground.

“Always We Are Destroyed” (Hobby-Horse / HHTE-027) arrives as a 2CD and digital retrospective marking twenty years of spectral transmissions — a career-spanning collection that reaches back to early self-released obscurities and compilation tracks while drawing from their three acclaimed studio albums. Crucially, it also captures their recent creative resurgence, sparked in part by the arrival of new vocalists Dorothy Chappell and Rebecca Leivers, and includes an exclusive new interpretation of the traditional “Brigg Fair”. Moving fluidly from austere traditionalism to sepia-toned ’70s folk-rock and into shadow-drenched, folk-horror psychedelia, the compilation reaffirms The Owl Service’s singular ability to honor their sources while reshaping them into something uncanny, intimate and unmistakably their own — just ahead of the forthcoming studio album “Tied To The Land”.

From the 38 tracks gathered on “Always We Are Destroyed”, I won’t attempt a full dissection — instead, I’ll dwell on the moments that truly linger. “By the Setting of the Sun” begins as disarmingly bare acoustic folk before slowly dissolving into shimmering, dream-soaked psychedelia, its lysergic haze building in a beautifully unhurried, almost agonizingly slow-burning way. “The Rolling of the Stones” radiates a kind of enchanted, new-era psych-folk spell craft, while “Hoodening” compresses some of the most gorgeously warped psychedelic textures you’ll hear into just 91 fleeting seconds. Their take on “Katie Cruel” feels like a time-warp collision — early ’60s psychedelia entwined with late-’70s folk sensibilities, producing a dizzying, head-spinning blend. Elsewhere, “Night Falls on Summer’s End” drifts through haunted, nocturnal folk-psych atmospheres, and “A Lyke Wake Dirge” achieves a pastoral, almost levitational quality — folk music that seems to hover and shimmer midair. “The Stone Bequest”, another brief vignette, proves that even under two minutes can feel transcendent in the right hands. “The Church Grimm” expands into cinematic, mind-altering folk-psych unease, whereas “The Wooden Coat” stands as a darkly luminous miniature — mysterious, brooding, and utterly absorbing. “The Red Barn” injects a welcome sharpness, its folk-psych core laced with a wiry, almost punk-like urgency. Their reading of “She Moves Through the Fair” channels the late-’60s British underground with uncanny precision, brimming with Freakbeat electricity, while “The Garden Gate” closes my personal selection on a more contemporary note — psych-folk refracted through a subtle trip-hop lens, dreamy and modern yet rooted deep in the band’s arcane sensibility…

In the end, “Always We Are Destroyed” stands not merely as a retrospective, but as a living testament to the singular vision of The Owl Service — a band that has spent twenty years reshaping British folk into something shadowed, spellbound and definitely their own. And yes, I confess: as a hopeless romantic devoted to the ritual of vinyl, I rarely stray from the crackle and circumference of wax. But this might well be one of those rare occasions where I make an exception. For a collection this expansive, this lovingly curated and this rich in atmosphere, I would gladly reach for the CD — and press play without hesitation. Grab it now! TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

1.1	Wake the Vaulted Echo	2:19
1.2	By the Setting of the Sun	8:27
1.3	The North Country Maid	2:47
1.4	The Rolling of the Stones	3:05
1.5	Hoodening	1:31
1.6	Turpin Hero	3:43
1.7	Katie Cruel	3:09
1.8	Night Falls on Summer’s End	3:58
1.9	A Lyke Wake Dirge	4:25
1.10	The Stone Bequest	1:38
1.11	The Church Grimm	3:37
1.12	The Wooden Coat	5:05
1.13	William, and Early Ricahrd’s Daughter	4:15
1.14	Standing on the Shore	5:14
1.15	A Moor, a Moor, a Mire	1:54
1.16	Rise Me Lads	1:44
1.17	Drive the Cold Winter Away	5:30
1.18	Cold & Raw	2:49
1.19	Winter (A Dirge)	6:25
2.1	The Banks of the Nile	5:40
2.2	Ladies, Don’t Go A-Thieving	3:02
2.3	I Was A Young Man	3:07
2.4	Willie O’Winsbury (Reprise)	1:45
2.5	Spring Strathspey	3:56
2.6	The Red Barn	3:37
2.7	Fine Horseman	3:37
2.8	The Widow’s Lament	3:57
2.9	The Skater	3:45
2.10	Sea Song	4:45
2.11	She Moves Through the Fair	3:58
2.12	Edi Beo Thu Heavene Quene	3:34
2.13	The Garden Gate	3:58
2.14	The Sea	4:21
2.15	Maids & Gentlemen	4:15
2.16	Time Has Come	2:46
2.17	Stars	2:14
2.18	Long Lankin	5:28
2.19	Brigg Fair	3:49