Haven

We Banjo 3's infatuation with bluegrass puts down its deepest roots yet in this fervent follow-up to 2016's String Theory. Recorded in the US with flatpicking virtuoso and nine-time IBMA guitarist of the year Bryan Sutton drafted in as co-producer, Haven nails its ‘Celtgrass’ colours to the mast with characteristically exuberant style. Veering between political angst – not least the pulpit-thumping title track – and private ardour in a number of bittersweet songs, Sutton's thumbprint is heard throughout, lending a rich Appalachian twang to the ecstatic banjo and fiddle combination of the Scahill siblings, Enda and Fergal. It's there, too, in David Howley's homespun vocals in the beseeching ‘Haven’ and anthemic ‘Pack it Up’. Songs – unusually, for them – dominate on this disc of newly penned material, but the handful of instrumentals stand their ground with irresistible vigour: ‘Sugar House’ rises to a fevered sweetness, while ‘Marry Me Monday’ is an affecting lyrical dialogue between Sutton's evocative guitar and Erin Snedecor's warm, cosseting cello. The addition of trumpet, saxophone, trombone and bass to the broken yearning of ‘Don't Let Me Down’ and rousing ‘Dawn Breaks’ persuasively beefs up and fleshes out the signature sound of a quartet that just gets better and better with each new release.