Kailyard Tales is the follow up album to 2014's Lion Rampant. Sadly, it marks Dave Swarbrick's last studio album, recorded before he passed away in 2016. The duo, backed by Wilson's band and several special guests, continue to explore the intersections of various folk/rebel musics of the past 400 years. The album includes a few self-penned cuts, Sandy Denny's ‘It Suits Me Well’, John Dowland's ‘Say Love if ever thou didst find’, and the Scottish abduction ballad ‘Eppie Moray’. Special guests include Martin Carthy, Dick Gaughan, The Battlefield Band's Alan Reid and Rob Van Sante, Ian Campbell and his son, UB40's Ali Campbell (marking the only time father and son sang together on record).
Running against the purists' convention, Wilson & Swarbrick hope to pick up where they left off with Lion Rampant , an album that was described by English folk music critic Ken Hunt (fRoots) as “Head and shoulders, the most eclectic, catholic and coherent musical banquet of 2014 thus far.” Similarly, Michael Hunter (Fiddlestix) described Wilson & Swarbrick's first full-length offering as “predictably high quality, well produced music with intelligently considered arrangements this music works because it is in exactly the right hands.”