Fionn Regan

It’s perhaps not entirely uncommon for folk singers to be referred to as “their generation’s Bob Dylan”, but then again, there’s no real smoke without fire; you have to do something worthy of note to have people talking that way about you, and when he released his debut full-length, The End of History, back in 2006, that was how people were looking at Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan; the media seemed convinced that he was set to lead the charge insofar as a new wave of British folk was concerned, and indeed it also seemed that Regan had all the hallmarks of the genre’s past legends; part Dylan, part Nick Drake, his witty observational eye and keen ear for melody marked him out as a potential star of the future, with The End of History being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. It’s probably not unfair to say that Regan has probably failed to live up to that potential, but that doesn’t mean that he’s been unsuccessful in the years since; he remains signed to Universal, and is prolific in the studio, releasing three albums between 2010 and 2012. His most recent, the latter year’s The Bunkhouse Vol. 1: Anchor Black Tattoo, saw him tour across the UK and U.S. in support, with a full band allowing him to switch between fleshed-out versions of his tracks and stripped-down acoustic ones.