In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, VARO – Lucie Azconaga and Consuelo Nerea Breschi – set out to create a project that would reflect the fraught global situation, using songs that existed long before the album’s inception.

A collaborative effort nearly five years in the making, The World That I Knew sees VARO tapping a fleet of Irish trad mainstays, among them Lankum’s Ian Lynch and Cormac Mac Diarmada, Junior Brother, John Francis Flynn, Lemoncello and more.

Led by Azconaga and Breschi, each song boasts its own distinct ecosystem. ‘Green Grows The Laurel’, which features trad crooner John Francis Flynn, is laid out in glittering repose, resisting major-chord resolutions at each turn. Junior Brother, meanwhile, accents ‘Skibbereen’ with his glow-in-the-dark vocals and rustic six-string musings.

Taken together, these 10 tracks ferment brilliantly, with exceptional virtuosity and raw folk inflections. This dynamic is captured and amplified in spades by the unmistakable production chops of John ‘Spud’ Murphy. By turns harrowing and uplifting, The World That I Knew is a well-wrought mammoth of stirring harmonies, doomsaying drones and stunning countermelodies.

A tour de force that demands repeat listening.

8.5/10