The Devine Family
Album: An Lon Dubh
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.johndevinemusic.com

As the name implies, The Devine Family, are indeed a family band and genuinely so. A folk trio the band consist of Caz, John and Joe Divine, with Joe representing the next generation of the Divine family. It was Joe that served as my introduction to the Devine Family. I saw him performing at Cambridge Folk Festival in a scratch duo with Matthew Tighe and discovered the band via that route.

"An Lob Dubh" was released earlier this year on the family's own record label and predominantly features the trios arrangement of traditional songs, with a couple of more contemporary numbers and a set tunes composed from within the band.

The instrumentation is predominantly pipes and whistles(John), sax(Caz) and banjo and guitar(Joe), sometimes including vocals and others purely instrumental with the arrangements definitely bring out the shine and lustre in the playing, both as a group and as individual players.

The thing I really love about "An Lon Dubh", and I don't mean to sound patronising when I say this, is that there are a lot of family band albums that are only sold to family and friends and the odd copy at gigs, The Divine Family, are definitely a couple of leagues above that.

Yes there are a number of standards on the release, but even there the band have applied a couple of twists, check out "She Grooves Through The Fair" by way of example. It's also an album that touches on lots of aspects of love and life.

"An Lon Dubh" is a pretty fine album, there's plenty to recommend the album, passion and spirit, great arrangements, The Devine Family have an album they can be proud of, with acres of appeal.

Neil King