Review: BBC Radio 2
(Clive Pownceby - August 2004 )

It's a Turkish Customs oficial. A disease of sheep. Or it means 'water' in Welsh and Irish. As we're not playing "Call My Bluff" and I don't want to be labelled a stereotypical reviewer, I won't start out by telling you how to pronounce the name of this outfit. What I can tell you is that here is the beguiling debut from the three-piece just getting used to photo sessions and live interviews as the fruits of winning Radio 2's Young Folk Award in 2002 start to fall from the tree. Theirs is a confident sound and frankly this is an astonishingly good recording that has me rifling through my adjective bag for a fresh slant on 'spellbinding' and 'terrific.'

The line-up's changed since the accolade of two years ago, but Cormac Byrne (bodhran, percussion) and Anna Esslemont (violin, vocals) who were students together at Manchester's Royal College Of Music remain, with Anna reunited with guitarist friend Ben Hellings from her first back-home band, Serotonin. The Welsh/Irish mixture of influences and backgrounds makes for a - yeah, that word - 'Celtic' feel yet the musical style of the album is resolutely European. Anna's classical training and sophisticated jazz-inflected Django/Grapelli guitar-fiddle interplay mesh with Cormac's clicks n' pops to put big-smile-on-face as laser hits disc.

There are three vocal tracks, not the least of which is Mr & Mrs - a family reconciliation song where Anna, whose lyrics they are, sings with a poignant and exquisite waifness whilst No Going Back, Sandra Kerr's song about the '84 miners' strike is effortlessly epic. The band may be critical favourites right now but this is no studied exercise in being innovative and cool just 'cos they can be. No, this CD's natural vigour, syncopation and cohesion is the real deal. It's easy to tell these are musicians who love what they do.

The band offers, in the CD's booklet, 'huge thanks and big fat hugs to you all." All I can add is that this is an album to hug close to your heart and I've still not told you how the name is pronounced. That's your homework for next week!

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