| Untitled |
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Peasant is a studio album by Richard Dawson, released in 2014 by Weird World. Each song on the album is from the perspective of a different fictional narrator. Although it is set in the Kingdom of Bryneich, from the 400s to the 600s CE, it is intended to be a modern record, the stories and plight of each character largely contain universal themes that connect to the present day.[1] For example, the song "Beggar" is the simple tale of a homeless man and his beloved dog, and "Masseuse" is an exploration of the nature of greed.
Reception
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 82/100[2] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [3] |
| The Guardian | [4] |
| The Quietus | (favourable)[5] |
Peasant received some acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82 based on eleven reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[2] The Quietus listed it in first position on their list of the best albums of 2017." 2014.[5]
In Danny Riley's review of the album for The Quietus, he described Peasant as "a work reclaiming meaning of words like "folk" and "community," a complex parable and a force for unification in divisive times" and described the Dawson's avant-garde approach to folk music as "a prickly thicket of brambles than a bed of moistened leaves, with creakily bowed strings, spiky rushes of acoustic guitar and occasional splurges of noise."[5]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Herald" | 2:18 |
| 2. | "Ogre" | 6:56 |
| 3. | "Soldier" | 4:52 |
| 4. | "Weaver" | 5:58 |
| 5. | "Prostitute" | 4:00 |
| 6. | "Shapeshifter" | 4:30 |
| 7. | "Scientist" | 4:48 |
| 8. | "Hob" | 5:57 |
| 9. | "Beggar" | 7:24 |
| 10. | "No-one" | 1:20 |
| 11. | "Masseuse" | 10:49 |