Skinny Lister’s full bloom, spirit-fuelled folk flurry started blossoming with the nourishment gained from Leicester’s folk clubs. Adding some fertilizer from the Thameside folk community, and life lessons and experience from getting pub punters up and down the land dancing, Skinny Lister are spreading roots for their own lively, irresistible folk revival.

It was a bright and bristling Skinny Lister that descended on Rockfield Studios in December 2013 to record their second album, ‘Down On Deptford Broadway’. Taking a more urban slant, the record takes in city-wide pub crawls (Six Whiskies), hazy lock-ins (George’s Glass), the struggles of modern living (This Is War) and, on the Clash-esque first single ‘Trouble On Oxford Street’, a real-life fight that Dan Hepinstall had in the West End. “That’s about me getting kicked in on Oxford Street by a couple of punk guys because I ruffled his hair,” he explains ruefully. “He told me not to do it so it was kinda justified but I lost teeth and had to go to hospital.”

Lister have been just as musically mischievous on the record too. Between their Celtic swings, romantic folk balladry and grand sway-along anthems, they’ve taken on a host of fresh inflections, from Costello to Tenpole Tudor. The roof-raising ‘Cathy’ – one of several songs about “a scarlet lady, someone that you’ve fallen for that you shouldn’t have fallen for” – is built around a Wall Of Sound beat and, cheekiest of all, they’ve borrowed the distinctive rhythm of Adam Ant’s Prince Charming for the roaring devotional Raise A Wreck.

“I’d written it just as a vocal-only sea shanty, and I was discussing it with Ted [Hutt], our producer, and we thought we could make it even bigger by putting some accompaniment to it. I’ve been listening a lot to Adam Ant so I thought it’d be alright just to borrow that rhythm, which is an amazing rhythm. I’ve not heard it on any other record.” – Dan Hepinstall