North Star

US-born singer-songwriter Kyle Carey has a pleasing voice, which she wields with deft assuredness and gentle charm. Her music, a hybrid form that she describes as Gaelic Americana, owes its special qualities to Carey's life-long study of Scottish Gaelic music, language and culture. North Star, her third album, was produced by Seamus Egan, a founding member of the Irish-American folk group Solas. She is accompanied on the album by a roster of standout traditional players including Josienne Clarke, Ben Walker, Natalie Haas and Chris Stout.

The album features nine originals, two songs in the Gaelic language, and a cover of ‘Across the Great Divide’ by the 70s singer-songwriter Kate Wolf. If your ears are inclined towards the romantic side of the folk spectrum, there is much to be savoured here. Most of the material stays well within the realm of the smoothly sentimental song, regardless of subject matter, although one of the songs, ‘Wind Through Casper’, stands out by assuming a gloomily melodic Appalachian-esque pallor.