IT’S always reassuring when folk music surprises you. Just when it seems like all the innovation has long since run dry, something comes along that’s genuinely worth spending time on.

In this case it’s The Barr Brothers, two siblings who, alongside the unarguably talented harpist Sarah Page, manage to craft truly genre-straddling fare that, although firmly grounded in bearded roots, never sticks to the well-trodden paths so many peers are happy to keep wandering down.

So while Even The Darkness Has Arms is a sublime, gentle exhibition of immersive, acoustic melodies, elsewhere we explore more innovative and experimental avenues – places where cinematic edginess meets raw journeyman fare, destined to soundtrack some jaunt across the Dakota bandlands (take Half Crazy, for example).

As inspired as it is inspirational, if second albums are supposed to be difficult for artists to make, then clearly nobody bothered telling these guys.

Martin Taylor