Formed in 2017 with a shared love and inspiration from groups such as Lankum and the Furrow Collective, Holly & The Reivers came together through a love of singing together.
Their music came to the attention of The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and in 2019 they supported Billy Bragg at Folk on the Tyne Festival. Though firmly rooted in the Folk song tradition the trio’s signature sound is comprised of their individual roots within Supernatural Ballads, Old Time music, Welsh song, Political songs and Scottish Fiddle. It is in these border lands of the folk genre that they thrive creatively without boundaries, bringing forth their own compositions that have been deeply influenced by traditional music.
Holly Clarke (Voice,Guitar), Merle Harbron (Voice,Fiddle) and Bertie Armstrong (Voice,Banjo) weave their arrangements around these old songs and bring their voices together, to create a soundscape that accompanies these old stories. This soundscape approach comes from the prolific influence of Folk Horror cinema, that the band views as a muse for their sound, both in a metaphorical sense as well as musical. The Reivers lean toward the songs with a darker narrative tapestry, where the songs reveal the more sinister stories from humanities past. Whether it be a murmuring fiddle heralding the arrival of vengeful ghost or the powerful voices rising that embodies the message of a political song, Holly & The Reivers are a band that holds the story at the centre of what they do.
Releasing their debut album ‘Three Galleys’ in November of 2023, it has been reviewed to critical acclaim and has received Radio play on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Show, Celtic Heartbeat, Tim Walker’s Folk show on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and has also had many international radio plays as well.