CRAN: “The Crooked Stair” (CBM)

FOR A three-piece, Cran pack quite a punch, helped in no small way by the fact that between them, the members of the group play over a dozen instruments. (Though not all at the same time, I hasten to add!).

On The Crooked Stair, they tackle an ambitious range of material from jigs, reels, and hornpipes to some more exotic music from further afield. ‘An Dro/Romanian Rollick’ for example is an effective merging of Irish and Eastern European elements and the swirling almost magical melodic strains evoke an authentic gypsy atmosphere. Likewise with ‘Corsican Waltz’.

There are songs featured here as well as instrumental pieces and at times, vocalist Sean Corcoran recalls Paul Brady circa ‘Arthur Mc Bride’ with Cran obviously drawing some inspiration from Planxty.

‘When A Man’s in Love’ is described as an old “night-visiting song” and the lyrics make that pretty clear: “I rapped at my love’s window, saying, ‘My dear are you within?’/And gently she undid the latch and slyly I slipped in.”

The ludicrously entitled ‘Laugh and Half-Daft’ (“a surreal and mischievous re-working of the name of a Welsh town, Llandaff”) chronicles the saga of a lovesick rover in search of his true love only to find she’s run off with a soldier of the Royal Artillery.

For lovers of orthodox folk and traditional music, The Crooked Stair is a fine offering.

• Colm O’Hare