The Young Folk
Album: The Little Battle
Label: Pixie Pace
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.theyoungfolk.com

The thing with music scenes is they're all like little villages, or playgrounds for that matter. Step back from them and you can pick out some ringleaders, the genuine talent reveals itself, as does the dross. In between though are myriad possibilities - acts that show promise, acts that might show promise at some time in the future, acts that have got a lot riding on them and ones that could just surprise everyone.

The Young Folk are decidedly young and definitely folk, but they've been knocking around the Irish (well, Dublin) scene for a while - hell, lead singer/guitarist Anthony Furey is from those Fureys, the Irish traditional music dynasty, he's George's boy and has been out on the road with his dad for months.

None of which would matter one iota if The Young Folk couldn't do the do for themselves and if this debut album is anything to go - and it must be otherwise what would be the point - they most certainly can. Letters is a class tune in anyone's book, atmospheric, soulful and gently stirring it emerges from the album as an instant anthem. The record opens with My Friends, which patches together some seriously accomplished vocal harmonies and has more than enough of its own thing going on to head off lazy Mumford comparisons.

Sad Day is full of woe but heartfelt not bleating - an earnest play for Fleet Foxes territory. Just as lachrymose, Long Time Ago adds country colours to the band's mainly traditional palette and Remember When shows off more fine harmony singing before the closing cut, Drunken Head/The Little Battle, a woozy, almost trippy affair that successfully whets the appetite for what might happen next.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk