Despite the dark

"One of the distinctive things about Rura is the originality of their compositions and arrangements. The opening track, the wild and wistful tune Dark Reel, sets the tone for the album. A slow atmospheric build-up leads to an explosion of energy on pipes, fiddle, guitars and bodhran, achieving a whirling-trance state of music that is hymnotically frenetic yet contemplative at the same time ... Another distinctive thing (...) is their vocalist, singer-songwriter Adam Holmes. Holmes's vocals have a warm, bluesy, contemporary quality. Not since Alex Campbell back in the 1960s has the Scottish folk scene had a folk-blues vocalist of this calibre. Holmes's soulful love song Weary Days is deliciously intense (...), his richly patinated vocal sounds like a solemnly euphoric Paolo Nutini who's just been given the secret of the unverse".