Light Up the Dark

There is a stadium feel to The Outside Track's music. The pan-Celtic quintet (from Ireland, Scotland and Cape Breton) have a slick energy to their sound that would translate well to the biggest stages. Light Up the Dark is the ensemble's fifth album, for which new vocalist Teresa Horgan joins Canadian fiddler Mairi Rankin, Scottish harpist Ailie Robertson, Highland accordionist Mairi Rankin and Irish guitarist Cillian O’Dalaigh. Their music is a Celtic fusion with touches of Americana and jazz; it can be hard to pin down. When it works, as on set of tunes ‘Glorious, Eh?’, which flicks from Scots to Irish melodies, it can be, as they suggest, glorious. And Horgan's delicate singing is rendered beautifully against the rigorous instrumental backdrop on the traditional favourite, ‘Canadee-I-O’.

But their more middle-ground fare, including most of the vocals tracks, can struggle for a sense of identity. The much-covered ‘Get Me Through December’ sounds rather maudlin with Horgan's quavering vocals; the meandering instrumental ‘The Wrong House’ feels like it is going nowhere – that is, until Rankin's violin kicks up a storm and Horgan develops a funky counter-melody on flute. Instrumentally, the performances are excellent, but all in all some soul is missing from this record.