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roller coaster ride that this album offers.

The more acoustic jaunt of Smugglers follows, a traditional song given a new coat. The craggy coasts of Ailsa Craig play host to a tail of brandy smuggling and excise men and although this acoustic guitar dominated tune is an age-old folk tune it still has all the hallmarks and originality of the band in its delivery, even if they can't make claim on its creation. From here the album momentarily steps down to its most mellow point and you find yourself on a ferryboat returning to harbour after years at sea, in Dover Lights. Here the most basic of music is built up into more than the sum of its parts by the clever layering of one, then two voices and a whole gang chorus that seems quite apt for this navel style sing along.

"Teachers of England instructed me well, strength comes from iron and fire,
Freedom was won from the barrel of the gun; law comes from palace and spire
I carried the wealth of this land across the sea till the ships and the cargoes grew slack,
Now many Jack Tar is washed up in a bar, many ships will never come back"

In those first three songs you have a taste of the flavour of this album, at its heart it's very nautical. There is plenty of room for the Men's other regular themes, trains, criminals and outcasts, the military and the underdog. Musically the mandolin is often the favoured weapon of choice, which makes a nice change to the guitar. Bounty Hunter in particular makes great use of this, spiralling up and away from the song on the lead before being reined in for more subtle work on the rest of the song. The vocals as usual make a full and powerful back drop on which the rest of the song is pinned, like a mini male voice choir the band give rise to some sumptuous harmonies and the music surges on in a relentless charge which you can only let wash over you and carry you away. For Island in the Rain its back to the maritime imagery of shorelines and harbours, here the setting is the Isle of Wight and a very personal reflection of places from the writers past. The music surges in and out like the breaking tide as the song ebbs and flows from lone mandolin refrains to full blown harmonies.

Historical tales, real or imagined are often the theme of the songs, and in the Colours the hero of the piece is a mutineer singing his lament from the gallows as he tells of the conditions and hardships they had to endure at sea, and how he always did his duty. A rousing sing along that in traditional folk style

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