Folk Bitch Trio – ‘Now Would Be A Good Time’ album review: Goosebumps from start to finish

Name: Folk Bitch Trio - Now Would Be A Good Time
Rating: 4.5

Lucy Harbron

Thu 24 July 2025 10:47, UK

Folk Bitch Trio - 'Now Would Be A Good Time'

4.5

THE SKINNY: In the mid-1960s, there were big arguments about folk music. It ripped friends apart and split lovers, all because Bob Dylan picked up an electric guitar or stopped writing protest songs, launching huge questions about what folk is, how genre is defined, and what it all means.

Decades later, Folk Bitch Trio are still contemplating them, seeing how the genre is so often taken as a deathly serious matter but presenting it, instead, with the humour and sharpness that only ever really comes from friendship.

That’s a prevailing thought here. My first note as I listened to the album was ‘all the best music is made by friends’, and I stand by it. Even for solo artists, their best work is made with the help of players or producers they know and love. But especially in a band, art demands intimacy, lyricism demands vulnerability, so of course, the best work is going to come out in the supportive and knowing atmosphere of a close friendship.

For Folk Bitch Trio, that came first as the members met in high school. Knowing each other through those tricky years surely means they can put anything in a song now without shyness or fear; leading directly to songs like ‘The Actor’ or ‘God’s A Different Sword’ or any track on this album where the topics of sexuality, anxiety, embarrassment, delusion, love and loss are navigated with both ease and poignancy.

Let’s take one lyric as an example: “Can’t deny it my body keeps the score / But if you tell me that you need it / I can get up off my floor”, the band sing in ‘God’s A Different Sword’. In that one bit alone, the band feel perfectly defined from the deeper acknowledgement of trauma, the richness of emotion in the admittance of need and then sharp snap back to the sort of casual tone one friend speaks to another with. Being able to move between all that, from heavy emotion to humour, in three lines; that’s friendship, and that’s the kind of art friendship allows.

Maybe it’s even more than friendship, as the tightness and ease of the band’s harmonies feel so natural. It’s almost more like a sibling relationship, where they say family members are able to meld their voices without even having to try, but I reckon Folk Bitch Trio would beat any family band in a sing-off any day.

All that loops back to the question of what folk is. While so many purists demand the topic be taken seriously, the friendship that underpins the band keeps their interactions with it feeling fresh and approachable. The instrumentation, melodies and harmonies undeniably grow from their love of that world, but across the album, it never stagnates as they wander the full landscape of where folk has gone, traversing the paths cut by all the rebels before them, joining up with the worlds of rock, indie, pop, country and even stadium-sized classic Americana.

But mostly, that doesn’t really matter. Who really cares about the genres involved or any level of categorisation when Now Would Be A Good Time is this beautiful? It’s beautiful in a way you could never get bored of, it’s packed with lyrics that stay impactful listen after listen, and their melodies are at once both so intriguing and so timeless that it manages to be exciting and natural, sweeping you up but never letting you get bored. In short, it’s gorgeous. All ten tracks. Gorgeous.

For fans of: Having the inner workings of your brain perfectly articulated in three-part harmony.

A concluding comment from Folk Bitch Trio: “Oh, you like our voices?? How about this water, huh? Nice and warm! Come swim!”

Now Would Be A Good Time track by track:

Release date: July 25th, 2025 | Producer: Tom Healy and Folk Bitch Trio | Label: Jagjaguwar

‘God’s A Different Sword’: An opener that puts it all on display; the stunning vocals, the warm guitars, the sharp lyricism. It’s been months now, and this single still sounds good as ever, holding some of the album’s best lines. [5/5]

‘Hotel TV’: Passing the lead vocals to Jeanie Pilkington, the band get moodier here, but the beauty stays sparkling in the band’s impossibly tight harmonies that give you goosebumps during that first track, and they never settle down. [4/5]

‘The Actor’: Another single that hasn’t dulled at all, ‘The Actor’ still sounds as affecting today as it did on the first listen, as proof that the band have landed on a truly golden sound that never rusts or fades. [4.5/5]

‘Moth Song’: A more lyrically ambiguous track with a downtrodden instrumental, it rains emotionally poignant and vocally flawless. [4/5]

‘I’ll Find A Way’: This song sounds like either being drawn into a big echoing church by angels, or tempted down into the water by sirens. Either way, I’d be following the sound and surrendering to whatever fate Folk Bitch Trio might have for me. [4.5/5]

‘Cathode Ray’: A deeply frustrated song where the movement between softer and louder moments, simplicity and bigger builds plays out the battle between desire and dissatisfaction and the trickiness of existing in a body with thoughts, wants and anxieties. [4.5/5]

‘Foreign Bird’: I worried that an album with singles this strong would feel weak in the in-between moments, but these new album tracks hit the same quality, delivering something equally beautiful but also bringing in new textures. [4/5]

‘That’s All She Wrote’: I heard the band play this live in May and I’ve been thinking about it since. The definition of a hauntingly beautiful song, the recorded version more than lives up to it. [5/5]

‘Sarah’: While the entire album remains consistent and cohesive, the band so expertly meander around the whole terrain of what folk is and could be. Here, it brushes up against country, indie, and even stadium-sized rock with those electric guitar details [4.5/5]

‘Mary’s Playing The Harp’: As the closing track finishes, I fear I’m out of words to adequately express what a beautiful album this is. So I’ll just say, Wow. [4.5/5]