BY MICHAEL CHOWNE
It was a real privilege for Country Lowdown to be given advance listens of ‘Creeping Thyme’, the new album from Kent raised Sorrel Nation, being released into the world on 23rd October 2026 like a butterfly emerging from it’s chrysalis. Surely one of the albums of the year, this is a beautiful collection of songs that sits at just under 40 minutes even though there are just 9 perfectly formed tracks.
Sorrel is a slight enigma, an artist in the truest sense that is almost impossible to pin down to a genre. A 70s inspired folk/country/americana sound feeling like a warm hug in challenging times, this is uniquely ‘Sorrel’ with that stunningly smooth, sometimes rootsy, voice sitting proudly as the centrepiece amidst some eerily beautiful instrumentation with strings prominent.
The main band here is formed of Sorrel on acoustic guitar, Sam Anderson on resonator and acoustic guitars, Hollie Garwood on bass guitar and musical saw (you have to see that live!), Sorrel’s partner Theo Holder on Cello and Caelia Luniss on violin. Sam, Hollie, and Theo all provide backing vocals to accompany Sorrel’s rich lead vocal tones. There are also added drums, percussion & mandolin from Adam Jackson and double bass from Stefan Croot on ‘Chaos Town’ (one of my favourite Sorrel songs that opens this album), double bass from Stefan Croot and mandolin from Gareth Price-Baghurst on ‘Ran Jonny Ran’ (the first single released from the album), along with additional backing vocals from Vanessa Forero on the folky song she co-wrote ‘When The Winter Breaks’.
There’s a good mix of up-tempo and mid-tempo songs along with slower songs, including the stripped back ‘Tell Me You Love Me’, that really hang their hat on that wonderful voice. The more up-tempo title track, the second single, is a clever play on words which can easily be heard as ‘creeping time’- a fitting idea for an album reflecting on how time can quietly creep up on us and how our priorities, relationships and sense of direction can change as we get older. ‘Creeping Thyme’, though, is very much in tune with Sorrel’s organic approach to life and music, a beautiful person that seems more in tune with the natural world than the majority living their 9 to 5 existence.
Apart from the classic new studio version of Sandy Denny’s ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’ (a live version appeared previously on Sorrel’s 2024 EP ‘Thirty Summers (Live)’) and the co-write with Vanessa mentioned above, all the songs were written by Sorrel either back home on the Isle of Wight in Sorrel’s converted horse lorry, Bertha, or while living the troubadour life in her campervan, Dory. Recording took place at Sickroom Studios, Norfolk with producer Owen Turner also handling the mixing and mastering.
Sorrel and her band will very soon be taking this wonderful new album on the road – be sure to check her website at https://www.sorrelnationmusic.com/gigs to book those tickets for when she passes anywhere near you. Country Lowdown can attest that Sorrel always puts on a mesmerising live performance that leaves the world feeling a better place.
