SHOW of Hands, one of England’s greatest acoustic folk bands, heads to Salisbury on Sunday.

Singer/songwriter Steve Knightley and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer have sold out the Royal Albert Hall on several occasions and hope to do the same at the City Hall as part of their massive county towns tour.

Steve Knightley’s songs have twice been nominated for best original song at the BBC Radio 2 folk awards, while Phil Beer was this year nominated for musician of the year in the same awards. Folk award winners they may be, but Show of Hands pitch into rock, blues, country and world music, playing on a multitude of instruments from slide guitars to fiddle, mandolin and South American cuatro.

Salisbury’s audience will be among the first to hear songs from the new studio album, Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed. Featuring eight new Knightley songs, two covers and two traditional songs and a title song that pulls no punches with its take on the economic downturn. The album is due for release on October 26.

Steve describes the title song of the new album as “angry, edgy, moody and dark and captures the resentment at the risks taken with other people’s money. The whole album reflects the spirit of the time, with another song titled IED (Improvised Explosive Device) as well as my own recent history.” Steve is referring to his son Jack’s diagnosis in 2007 with leukaemia. Happily, he says his son is doing fine and 2009 saw Steve back in writing mode and writing about big themes: “If you can connect with the narrative, it makes things easier.”

Sharing the stage on Sunday will be double bass player Miranda Sykes who, says Steve is “very much part of our live set up”.