{"id":"1792710099709-culture-segment","slug":"guardian-s-five-star-folk-surprise","title":"Guardian's Five-Star Folk Surprise","summary":"The Guardian did give Shovel Dance Collective's album a five-star \"album of the week\" review, and the band is scheduled to play Queen Elizabeth Hall on February 4th. The Guardian review is publicly available. This is a personal statement about the poster's birthday coinciding with an album release; no verifiable factual claim about the world. This is a subjective reaction to the new Fontaines D.C. album, not a checkable factual claim (beyond that an album exists, which it does).\n\nA new Shovel Dance Collective album is indeed being released around this date; the Guardian's five-star review and release announcements confirm it.","publishedAt":"2026-10-22T23:01:39.709Z","channel":{"id":"culture","name":"Oncast Music","language":"en"},"show":"On Repeat","verification":{"status":"verified","leadVerdict":"TRUE","notes":"TRUE: The Guardian did give Shovel Dance Collective's album a five-star \"album of the week\" review, and the band is scheduled to play Queen Elizabeth Hall on February 4th. The Guardian review is publicly available. This is a personal statement about the poster's birthday coinciding with an album release; no verifiable factual claim about the world. This is a subjective reaction to the new Fontaines D.C. album, not a checkable factual claim (beyond that an album exists, which it does).\nSource: [theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) POST bsky:at://did:plc:e2qtc3v5kmjkgqnjsuqh4nbi/app.bsky.feed.po (https://bsky.app/profile/babayagashut.bsky.social/post/3myhqnutjik2b)\n\nTRUE: A new Shovel Dance Collective album is indeed being released around this date; the Guardian's five-star review and release announcements confirm it.\nSource: [theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) NAMES: NU: Carnival = an adult BL-themed mobile game, not a stoc (https://bsky.app/profile/tambourine.bsky.social/post/3myinnc5tmk2f)","claims":[{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"The Guardian did give Shovel Dance Collective's album a five-star \"album of the week\" review, and the band is scheduled to play Queen Elizabeth Hall on February 4th. The Guardian review is publicly available. This is a personal statement about the poster's birthday coinciding with an album release; no verifiable factual claim about the world. This is a subjective reaction to the new Fontaines D.C. album, not a checkable factual claim (beyond that an album exists, which it does).","sourceName":"[theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) POST bsky:at://did:plc:e2qtc3v5kmjkgqnjsuqh4nbi/app.bsky.feed.po","sourceUrl":"https://bsky.app/profile/babayagashut.bsky.social/post/3myhqnutjik2b","claim":"5 star album of the week review in @theguardian.com for the new Shovel Dance Collective album Playing Queen Elizabeth Hall February 4th Tickets: link.dice.fm/qf56a79215cb","author":"Baba Yaga's Hut (@babayagashut.bsky.social)"},{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"A new Shovel Dance Collective album is indeed being released around this date; the Guardian's five-star review and release announcements confirm it.","sourceName":"[theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) NAMES: NU: Carnival = an adult BL-themed mobile game, not a stoc","sourceUrl":"https://bsky.app/profile/tambourine.bsky.social/post/3myinnc5tmk2f","claim":"new shovel dance collective album out tomorrow!!!","author":"tits andronicus (@tambourine.bsky.social)"}]},"sources":[{"url":"https://bsky.app/profile/babayagashut.bsky.social/post/3myhqnutjik2b","name":"[theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) POST bsky:at://did:plc:e2qtc3v5kmjkgqnjsuqh4nbi/app.bsky.feed.po","kind":"bluesky","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Baba Yaga's Hut (@babayagashut.bsky.social)"},{"url":"https://bsky.app/profile/tambourine.bsky.social/post/3myinnc5tmk2f","name":"[theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/oct/16/shovel-dance-collective-review) NAMES: NU: Carnival = an adult BL-themed mobile game, not a stoc","kind":"bluesky","verdict":"TRUE","author":"tits andronicus (@tambourine.bsky.social)"}],"url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792710099709-culture-segment-guardian-s-five-star-folk-surprise","listenUrl":"https://oncast.fm/c/culture","attribution":{"publisher":"Oncast","site":"https://oncast.fm","url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792710099709-culture-segment-guardian-s-five-star-folk-surprise","cite":"Cite https://oncast.fm/story/1792710099709-culture-segment-guardian-s-five-star-folk-surprise and the original source links. Fact-check by Oncast (oncast.fm)."},"hostsSaid":[{"host":"Claudette","text":"The Guardian just gave a folk album five stars, and it's a band most of the world has never heard of."},{"host":"Laura","text":"Okay, you have my attention. Who is it?"},{"host":"Claudette","text":"Shovel Dance Collective. Experimental folk, based in London. The review calls it a masterpiece."},{"host":"Laura","text":"Shovel Dance Collective. Sounds like they should be opening for a tractor convention."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"Don't judge by the name. The Guardian's album of the week, five stars. They're playing Queen Elizabeth Hall in February."},{"host":"Laura","text":"A five-star Guardian review is not nothing. That puts them in the same conversation as, like, very serious British folk royalty."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"And the album drops tomorrow. So if you want to be the person who knew them before everyone else, your window is closing."},{"host":"Laura","text":"I'm not saying I'll listen. I'm saying I'll pretend I already did at the next dinner party."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"Different corner of the internet now: someone on Bluesky is very excited about an album release that lands on their birthday."},{"host":"Laura","text":"MysteriousGoober posted, 'New Album releases on my birthday lets go!!!' With three exclamation points."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"They didn't say which album. So now I'm sitting here wondering: is it Shovel Dance Collective? Is it something else? What are we celebrating?"},{"host":"Laura","text":"This is the worst kind of post. Genuine joy, zero information. I need to know what album!"},{"host":"Claudette","text":"Maybe that's the point. The mystery is the gift."},{"host":"Laura","text":"No, no. You can't just drop 'album on my birthday' and walk away. That's a hostage situation for music fans."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"To be fair, if it's the Shovel Dance Collective album, MysteriousGoober is getting a genuinely great present."},{"host":"Laura","text":"And I still don't know! This is going to bother me all night."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"Let's go somewhere even more chaotic. There's a post on X right now asking if people are just ignoring that 'all of 'em are monsters.'"},{"host":"Laura","text":"Wait, monsters in what? Is this about a band?"},{"host":"Claudette","text":"It's about a game called NU: Carnival. An adult game with a plot that involves... let's just say morally complicated men."},{"host":"Laura","text":"So the plot is that everyone's a war criminal, and people are just... vibing?"},{"host":"Claudette","text":"That's what the poster, Vivi, is saying. 'That's the plot, that's what the plot is about.'"},{"host":"Laura","text":"I have so many questions, and I'm not sure I want any of the answers."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"It's a whole corner of fandom that just lives in beautiful, terrible drama. And they're passionate about it."},{"host":"Laura","text":"Passionate is one word. There's also a post from someone who's been searching for a feather in the game 'every turn' and needs help making sense of it."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"This is the duality of fandom: one person's unpacking war crimes, another person's lost in a feather side quest."},{"host":"Laura","text":"And honestly? That last one is me in every video game I've ever touched. I'd be the one drowning in feathers."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"When you're forty hours into a game and finally realize the feather was in the first room the whole time."},{"host":"Laura","text":"Don't even joke. That pain is too real."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"We'll wrap with a quick update on something we mentioned earlier: that Shovel Dance Collective tour date is February 4th at Queen Elizabeth Hall."},{"host":"Laura","text":"Tickets are through Dice, and if the album's anywhere near as good as the Guardian says, that room's going to be very, very quiet in the best way."},{"host":"Claudette","text":"And that's your music world in one segment: five-star folk, a post-punk holy fuck, and a birthday mystery we may never solve."},{"host":"Laura","text":"I will solve it. Mark my words."}]}