Rura

Despite The Dark

(Rura Music)

On a first listen, this second album by Scottish folk band Rura sounds like two EPs shuffled together as traditional instrumentals alternate with songs sung by Adam Holmes.

It doesn't take long, however, before it reveals itself as much more organically integrated than that. Like the Kris Drever vocals that break the wordless flow on Lau's albums, Holmes's songs (as good as anything he's done with his other band The Embers or hip hop project Bang Dirty) provide a welcome change of style and rhythm while growing directly from the music: the soft fiddle and flute harmonies on the majestic Weary Days, the bodhran that gives backbone to the rousing Dick Gaughan-style Between The Pines, the fiddle that supports the vocal melody of Cauld Wind Blast before taking solo flight.

Lau are an interesting comparison. Despite a few subtle uses of electronic effects, there's nothing here quite as experimental as that particular trio's work; but while filling a gap for the folk traditionalists who believe Lau go too far, Rura are increasingly inventive within the medium - the fast, repeated pipe-and-fiddle phrases at the end of Dark Reel pull classical Minimalist patterns into folk music with breaktaking effect, a brilliant fusion of the old and the new.

Alan Morrison