Album review: Old Blind Dogs: Wherever yet might be

OLD BLIND DOGS: WHEREVER YET MIGHT BECOMPASS RECORDS, £12.99***

NOW into their 18th year, the current configuration of the Old Blind Dogs sounds in vigorous fettle, with fiddler Jonny Hardie, the last remaining orginal OBD, now joined in the front row by the nimble-fingered Ali Hutton on Border pipes and whistles, with rhythms laid down by singer Aaron Jones on guitar and bouzouki and percussionist Fraser Stone.

This is a polished production with some tight, fluid playing and an occasional sparingly applied touch of brass. Some songs are resolutely up-tempo, such as Jones's post-Planxty rendition of Lough Erne's Shore, which gallops out of Hardie's plangent fiddle air St Kilda. Davy Steele's song Scotland Yet, and the traditional Banks of the Nile come at a similar pelt, not necessarily to their betterment, while a mellower version of Andy M Stewart's Where Are You Now? eases into a similarly paced instrumental that accelerates into a fiery finale.