Fàs

Popular Scottish band Breabach return with their first album in four years having used the enforced periods of gigging inactivity during the pandemic to reflect on the world around us and develop the group's tonal palette. New arrival, Conal McDonagh adds a new voice and a new sound, the uilleann pipes, as well as playing Highland pipes and whistles. Elsewhere, synths, programming and percussion add complex extra textures to the familiar pipes, fiddle, guitar and double bass-driven ensemble.

Most of the tracks come from within the group or its extended family. Singer-fiddler Megan Henderson's brother, Ewen, has written ‘Eadar an Dà Bhràigh’, a fine contemporary Gaelic song sung by Henderson, in praise of a Lochaber nature reserve – but there's also a nicely turned reading of John McLellan's retreat march ‘Lochanside’ (with its words by Scottish entertainer Andy Stewart). The softly tuneful ‘Revolutions’ addresses renewable energies and the title-track – a Gaelic word meaning ‘growth,’ ‘developing’ or ‘sprouting’ has crisply riffing guitar, fiddle and bass parts and a lilting whistle line behind Henderson's sweet, spirited vocals and the group chorus.