His Pride. No Spear. No Friend. Is the third full-length album from English alternative folk collective The Owl Service, their first new material since 2010's acclaimed The View from a Hill. This album sees the band eschewing both their psych-folk beginnings and the more polished, classic folk-rock sound of The View from a Hill to serve up an album of songs mostly from the British folk tradition but without folk instrumentation, and with little in the way of folk sensibilities. Instead, the band strived to create a different kind of modern folk album, placing these familiar songs in unfamiliar settings. Whereas previous albums unashamedly wore their influences on their sleeves, giving significant nods to the likes of Fairport Convention, Martin Carthy, Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, and Trees, this time the starting point was the sounds of '90s US post-hardcore and early post-rock bands, in which The Owl Service were immersed while arranging these songs. The end product is a unique reimagining of 21st-century folk music a world away from any of their contemporaries.