Latest CD releases reviewed

BRAY VISTA Sing My Darling Sombrero Records ****

And then it got serious. Well, not quite so serious that it stopped being fun. Bray Vista's first full-length album builds on the promise shown by their 2003 debut, This Time Around, and the excellent When I Get There EP of 2004. As the faux closer, Reprise, recounts, this is a band of nine friends who were drawn together in the north Wicklow town by their love of country music and have grown into an impressive bunch, somehow managing to create a cohesive sound. This album has 14 tracks, 13 named and a hidden one which is the warm fireside title track. A measure of how far they've come is that these songs, mostly written by singer-guitarist Neil Tobin and steeped in the spirit of pre-Nashville packaging days, sound like the real deal, albeit one that is often too one-paced - that walking rhythm of which they are so fond. But the harmonies, arrangements and playing all reflect care and attention to detail. Buy the album on their website and they'll throw in the EP. www.brayvista.com Joe Breen

SETH LAKEMAN Kitty Jay Gael Linn ***

Being the Heathcliff of English folk music may be a noose or a springboard for Seth Lakeman. His previous work with Kate Rusby, Equation, Cara Dillon and his brother Sam (of The Lakeman Brothers) has earned him countless plaudits, most recently a nomination as Folk Singer of the Year in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2006. Kitty Jay, Lakeman's Mercury-nominated second solo album, is a confident, strutting beast of beauty, melding medieval tales of errant knights with contemporary epics of bonded labour that will strike a chord for anyone with an ear cocked towards the news these days. Lakeman's landscape favours a strident, cinematic violin and viola, underscored by his brother Sean's electric bass and mandolin. Might even prove a welcome lure for a less cardiganed class of punter towards English folk. www.sethlakeman.co.uk. Siobhán Long