The Mediaeval Baebes fourth album, The Rose, stays close to the band's magical stories of Old and Middle English, but with a romance that's sweetly aged and mysterious. Katharine Blake and her eight singing sisters are enchanting on this album, a fantastic cut above 1999's Worldes Blysse due to their pleasurable soundscapes of medieval Welsh and Russian languages. They still stay close to harmonies in German, Italian, Latin, and medieval French, but an expansive change allows The Rose to be more than just a piece of work surrounded by threads of worldbeat. The Mediaeval Baebes find themselves in a different world. It's dark and haunting in spots, and the howling blackness of