Continuing in the English folk tradition of their previous work, the Watersons offer a musical calendar to accompany the changing of the seasons. Somber ballads ('John Barleycorn') country dances ('Earlsdon Sword Dance Song') religious and holiday songs ('Bitter Withy,' sung hauntingly by Mike Waterson) commerate the plowing and the harvest, and the cycles of birth and death. The chromatic, dissonant melody of 'Souling Song' is particularly distinctive. This CD improves with each listen.