Snowdogs

Two short years on from their spirit-shocking debut, Calico are back, their line-up embellished from a skeletal three to a more cosy five, their repertoire expanded and their confidence soaring.

Piper and whistler Diarmaid Moynihan is still chief cook and bottlewasher, contributing a baker’s dozen of tunes to a melting pot that bubbles with the unrestrained relish of a jambalaya that’s infused with a rake of heady delights from the store cupboard.

‘Hooversville’ is a perfect calling card for their brand of impertinent playfulness. Kicking off with a jazzed flick of the twist between guitar and pipes, ‘The Happy Aunt’ mutates from brazen funkiness into the more traditional-tasting ‘Hang On’ where fiddle and pipes take up the lead.

Three songs add further hues to Calico’s palette, and while they tootle along lightly, occasionally they shift the mood unnecessarily, as in ‘Susanna Martin’, a song of the Salem witch trials that flounders amid the more rooted tunes that scaffold it.

On the other hand, ‘Small Sacrifice’ sits with far greater comfort in its surrounds, with veiled references to relationships, both personal and cultural, and hints at the perils of the tiger whose teeth are finally being bared more blatantly these days.

Calico’s snapshot of music is certainly one for the album. And like the best of magical moments in time, they capture the gilt and guilt of tradition in one and the same frame.