Levellers

Aptly named after a 17th-century leftist political movement, The Levellers blend fiddle-swept English and Celtic folk influences with literate, outspoken pub rock.

That combustible mixture of folk, punk, and politics situated them squarely in the lineage of Billy Bragg and The Pogues when the band formed in Brighton in 1988.

But while The Levellers underscored the importance of lyrics by calling their 1990 debut A Weapon Called the Word, singer/guitarist Mark Chadwick also recognised the limits of what words could do, memorably declaring “And all the problems of the world won’t be solved by this guitar” on 1991’s “One Way.” Yet that hasn’t stopped the band from sticking to its personal ideology across multiple decades, adopting socialism-inspired cover art for 2002’s Green Blade Rising and keeping contemporary greed and hypocrisy very much in their sights on 2021’s Truth & Lies.