I bought this album looking for more of Steeleye Span's early work, before they began to sound like a 70's rock band. I already loved Please to See the King and Below the Salt, their most traditonal albums, and Hark the Village Wait, which is also wonderful despite the banal drumming, but found that I disliked their later, more electric albums.
Summer Solstice is delightful. All acoustic, with 2 engaging voices, plenty of spunk, lively traditional rhythm, and an alternate version of one of my favorite Steeleye songs, False Knight on the Road -- here a gorgeous full-throated Maddy Prior solo. (On Please to See the King, it's a fast-talking riddle-song duet between 2 men, I'm not sure who -- the CD I have doesn't list credits.) Most of the songs and snippets of song are traditional, and the one or two that are modern fit in well with the others. I'd recommend this album to anyone who likes traditional acoustic music.
