Johnny Flynn & Robert Macfarlane

★★★ Lost In The Cedar Wood TRANSGRESSIVE. CD/DL/LP

Actor and author makes romping and stomping long-player.

Best known for playing David Bowie in the Stardust film and for his role in The Dig, as a sideline Johnny Flynn has made albums for over a decade. Dr Robert Macfarlane writes books about the natural world. Together, they’re partly inspired by The Epic Of Gilgamesh, a flood saga written around 2100BC, although their song Gods And Monsters concerns the grisly fate of one of its translators, the Victorian Syrian expert, George Smith. For all its lofty subject matter,

Lost In The Cedar Wood is the raucous sound of modern-day sea shanties. Fiercely strummed, irresistibly catchy for the most part, and propelled by Flynn’s part Captain Birdseye, part Dubliner Ronnie Drew vocals, it’s a goodnatured romp. Bonedigger is made for call and response over jugs of ale, while Tree Rings has a Lumineers-style stomp, but when they slow things down on Nether, there’s shade as well as light.