There are bands who churn out album after album like they’re on an assembly line, and then there’s bands like Scullion. The folk outfit may be the polar opposite of prolific, but there is a carefully crafted ambience to their output that comes only with time-worn experience. The trio’s first album of original material in a decade (and only their second since 1985′s Spin) is a beautifully pitched affair that simultaneously nods to their past and embraces their present.

There are covers of songs by The National (their understated take on I Need My Girl) and Sufjan Stevens (a delicately plucked No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross), although their take on Bob Dylan’s melancholic Love Sick is a little overdone and unnecessarily prolonged. They also mine their own back catalogue with a reworking of an old track from 1979; here, the Ulysses-inspired Fruit Smelling Shop is given a sumptuous, string-saturated makeover.

Elsewhere, the winsome melody and gentle rollick of All the Bells in Spain – a song written by Sonny Condell for his daughter’s wedding, in lieu of a “father of the bride” speech – is a highlight, as is the bluesy Smoke Rising, which calls to mind John Martyn’s work. They may not come around very often, but a Scullion album is always worth waiting for.