As an artist, Eliza Carthy is a bit tough to pin down: she comes very clearly from the British (specifically English) folk tradition and draws on it constantly in her solo work, but she also rocks out, and she writes her own songs, and sometimes her style doesn’t fit any description other than “Eliza Carthy music.” On Rough Music she leads a band called the Ratcatchers on a collection of songs and tunes both new and old, on which she plays fiddle (brilliantly) and sings (also brilliantly) and demonstrates that even the oldest and most traditional English music can sound brand new in the right hands.