RIVER DRIVERS

They have roots in Ireland and Scotland but live in Philadelphia on the east coast of the USA. It's no wonder then that the folk music they play balances between Celtic and American influences, and more precisely from the Appalachian mountain range in the eastern United States.

The quartet includes two singers, Kevin McCloskey and Mindy Murray, who single-handedly wrote five of the ten tracks on the album. The songs are sometimes poignant and tell the story of the daily and hard life of American workers during the last century. The album opens with Children's March, a strong lyric that tells the story of Mother Jones who in 1903 led the march of mutilated and malnourished children to Philadelphia. This is followed by Going Once, on a similar theme, the true story (that of Mindy's grandmother) of a mother who finds a new home for her nine children after her farm has been foreclosed and sold at auction.

There is Sí, Se Puede, again who brushes the farm workers' exploitation in the American West. We can also mention Cumann na nBan, when Irish women rose up to overthrow the colonial chains in their homeland. Supported by Marian Moran's whistles and concertina and Megan Ratini's fiddle, the two singers accompany each other on guitar, mandolin and banjo, delivering an energetic and catchy music that is sometimes reminiscent of the Dubliners.

The only drawback of this album is its brevity, a criticism I had already made to them on their first album.

Autoproduit – www.theriverdrivers.com