A few weeks ago, when I saw the New Eves open for YHWH Nailgun at the ICA in London, ‘Highway Man’ is the song they closed with - a driving, propulsive crescendo which pushes the limits of an already extreme sound.
The track is built round the band’s counteracting parts: Violet Farrar’s meandering violin lines; interchanging of spoken word lines with droning, seasick harmonies; Nina Winder-Lind’s squalling guitar. All of those elements are at their best and their most oppositional on 'Highway Man', a song made great by its contradictions between swirling psychedelic-folk balladry and post-punk aggression.
The lyrics paint a vivid Gothic scene, right in the territory of Emily Bronte or Daphne du Maurier: “The road’s a ribbon / Running through the moorland / Bright violet lightning / The highwayman comes riding.” Wailing vocals lend a dirge-like gloom to the atmosphere - the ancient heathland and the highwayman ‘riding, riding, riding’ are all there in the sound. But as “the cops are callŠµd in”, “turned on by their duty and the woman’s tender beauty”, the song morphs into a contemporary ballad, an outburst against “a society / where the authorities / are sickened”.
‘Highway Man’ is an English folk song which refuses to stay in the past, making it all the more effective.
