Album Review: Ye Vagabonds, All Tied Together

Ye Vagabonds have an innate ability to create sound that feels like home: that sickening, nostalgic feeling that sits in your throat before sinking to your belly.

On All Tied Together, trad-folk brothers Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn give us the who, what, where and why, while still keeping a bit of the secret to themselves.

The album marks the band's first LP since releasing Nine Waves in 2022, which received awards for Best Folk Album and Best Traditional Folk Track at the RTÉ Radio 1 Music Awards. Recorded in a house somewhere in Galway, their new record sees them collaborate with Adrienne Lenker producer Philip Weinrobe. Just as with Lenker's Songs, the brothers offer beautiful acoustic prose throughout the narrative album.

'Where The Heart Lies' arrives as a reflective track, accepting home with open arms. Especially touching for those us who have chosen to leave home, the song recognises the journey of life and the nature of being a true "vagabond", while still being gracious to your roots. The track calls on the tender power of acoustic guitar, emphasising the beauty of simplicity expressed in lines like: "This is where I lay down, where my kettle boils / This where my mind sighs, this is where the heart lies."

It's as if All Tied Together speaks directly to those who call Ireland home. Some tracks are dedicated to the Irish landscape, some set the scene in Stoneybatter ('Sitric Road'), and others discuss the cultural devastation shaped by the housing crisis.

Throughout All Tied Together, Ye Vagabonds comment on mortality and fleeting youth. 'Danny' remarks on the unfairness of life, covering themes of loneliness and regret. It offers a glimpse into the guilt of realising that perhaps things have gone too far. While songs like 'Danny' discuss the inevitability of death through the lens of tragedy, 'Young Again' examines aging as a sneaky universal process.

On All Tied Together, home is much less about the four walls around you, and much more about the people and places which have grown alongside you. We affect and are affected by others even beyond our last breath. The album brings a wholeness to the human experience, with songs even about the mundane bits of life coming through as folklore.

• Ye Vagabonds kick off their Irish tour later this month, with shows across the island, starting at Mandela Hall in Belfast on February 19, before finishing up at Dolan's in Limerick on March 29. Listen to All Tied Together below: