Traffic

Lia Luachra are a quartet who've been scaling the heights for a couple of years now. Having launched a full frontal assault with their eponymous debut, they're back with another densely-packed hour-long conglomerate of new and traditional tunes and songs.

Traffic is a considered collection: replete with a rake of original toons, and a quartet of new songs from Jon Hicks' pen, it's an album that seeps into the veins gradually, letting the quirks and foibles of the arrangements make their own idiosyncratic impressions.

It's the quiet confidence of the playing, the uncluttered orchestration that still distinguishes Lia Luachra's style. With all four members contributing to writing or arranging, there's a delicate balance struck between instruments and players, each member effortlessly weaving skeins of light through the tunes.

Shane Bracken's 'Threads' is a particular delight, concertina tiptoeing and hop-skipping between Hicks' featherlite guitar strings and Corey's mandolin. Tricia Hutton's cello delivers the killer punch though, albeit with the deftness of a shadow-boxer in full flight. A number of the other original tunes are equally breathtaking: Declan Corey's opener, 'Changing Silver', partnered by Shane's 'Deichnuir' cast a glance to the past while all the time shuffling into the future with an enviable panache.

If there's a chink to be found in Lia Luachra's armour, it's in their song selection. Hicks' writing style conjures images of Nick Drake and sundry other English folksters in equal measure, and occasionally jars against the fluidity of the tunes. Although ably abetted by Niamh Parsons on two tracks, the songs somehow create gaps that sit ill at ease with the rest of the album. Less a liability, than a reflection of the need for further development, Traffic's songs reflect a band still very much in the throes of spirited exploration.