The Hare's Lament

This is the third album from River Lea, the folk imprint on Rough Trade Records, following on from Irish singer Lisa O'Neill and Skye's Brìghde Chaimbeul. Ye Vagabonds come from a similar ‘new tradition’ in Irish traditional music that has brought us not only O'Neill but the likes of Lankum, too.

While O'Neill and Lankum specialise in drawing deep drones through their tunes, Ye Vagabonds take a higher, airier approach. At times, the voices of brothers Brían and Diarmuid MacGloinn, from Carlow in south-east Ireland, are reminiscent of Tim van Eyken's style on his 2010 classic Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves. The instrumentation is spare and largely acoustic: a mixture of violin, bouzouki, guitar and mandolin between the brothers, and guest spots from Alain McFadden (adding the drone of harmonium on the opening of ‘Willie O Winsbury’), fiddler Jessie Smith, John Flynn on tin whistle and fellow River Lea signing Brìghde Chaimbeul on smallpipes.

Beautifully set and performed, from ‘The Foggy Dew’ through the title-track and ‘On Yonder Hill’ to the closing ‘Willie O Winsbury’, and with a range of traditional Irish tunes, some learned from archive recordings of their own grandfather, this is a remarkable album from a fresh and powerful young band.