Release

American music is rooted in rhythms from Africa and the longing at the soul of Irish music. Don't take my word for it. That's the gospel as quoted by Pete Seeger in Philip King's documentary series Bringing It All Back Home.

As with so much in that series, this point is debatable. But what isn't debatable is the sheer rhythmic power, poetry and even primal excitement of Afro-Celt Sound System. Whether, like me, you loved their debut album, the confidently titled 'Volume 1: Sound Magic" or caught them live, you'll already have been long convinced of their talents. On hearing this group's pumping music, you'd want to be dead to the soul not to respond. So does the second album, Release, soar to the same heights as the first? You bet. And then some.

It almost doesn't matter what the tracks are. From the eerie title track which opens the album, hauntingly sung by Sinéad O'Connor and Iarla O Lionaird, you know you're into a soundscape that is as far removed as possible from paper-tissue pop 1999-style. Neither does the music sacrifice the pleasure, spontaneity and sheer joy that also is too often missing these days.

Maybe the throat-grabbing emotional power in that track is, even partly, rooted in the fact that since they made their debut album, Afro-Celt Sound System have lost their keyboard player, Jo Bruce, who died suddenly. Or maybe the pulsing, breathing dynamic at the soul of tracks like 'Riding The Wavers' and 'Even In My Dreams' stems more from the fact that these guys now have at least 100 live gigs under their belt.

But most potent, resonant and moving of all are those tracks directly influenced by Bruce's death. For example, the Irish-reel-meets-thundering-West-African-drum-driven 'I Think Of', which Iarla has described as "a personal testament of faith" following's Jo's death.

The song, he says, "is about the band having to dig deeper than it ever feared after Jo's death, and finding essential truths after the despair. We had two choices and we realised we had to go on."

In that comment Iarla O Lionaird sums up the life-affirming soul of this album. But then that, too, has always been a feature of Afro Celt Sound System's music. It's just that this time round everything is accentuated a thousandfold.