Úr

Úr sees a first personnel change for Goitse with Alan Reid replacing James Harvey on banjo and adding piquant bouzouki to the mix. An alumnus of Limerick Universit's Academy of Irish Music and Dance, where Goitse formed in 2010, Reid takes his place with lightly thrown-of aplomb, dexterously nimble on finger-picked banjo (‘The Eagle's Rock’) and making the bouzouki sound like it has forever been a part of the quintet's sound. It's especially welcome as delicate underpinning to Áine McGeeney's cut-crystal vocals in ‘Emerald (Isle of Gola)’, a tale of eloping lovers.

The bouzouki is supplemented even more so by Tadhg Ó Meachair's liquid piano accordion in the coupling of the dreamy slip jig ‘Siobháinín Seó’ and McGeeney's ‘The Truce’. Guest contributions add new tones and textures to ink in the album's title, Úr (translating as ‘Fresh’). Hothouse Flowers' double bassist Martin Brunsden provides characterful support on nine of the 11 tracks with vocalist Barry Kerr joining McGeeney on ‘Henry Joy’, a potent tribute to the eponymous Irish revolutionary and organiser of Belfast's legendary 1792 Harp Festival. Conal O'Kane's guitars and Colm Phelan's bodhrán add fire and thunder of their own as Goitse look to their second decade with characteristic verve.