Altan: Another Sky

You gotta respect the lilt and history behind this meditative album, led by the bare-nerve keening and skipping lullabies of Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh's ornamented child-voice on Beidh Aonach Amarach, Dylan's Girl from the North Country, the local slice-of-history Eoghainin O Ragadain, even a sweet-sorrow song from Steve Cooney - warming ballads, wafting over snoozy arrangements between Curran's bouzouki, the drum-tight guitars of Kelly and Sproule, Byrne's accordion swells and Tourish's rangy fiddle dovetailing with Ni Mhaonaigh's. The dance tracks whip you forward, with Tourish and Byrne neck and neck on the needlepoint prosecution. Byrne breaks loose once, but otherwise, it's one great collective effort, aimed right at ye.

- Mic Moroney

Danu: Think Before You Think (Shanachie)

There's a fine testosterone kickstart to this rattling, pace-pushing lattice of young musicians, only raging to be let off the leash: the dulcet, articulate fluting of Tom Doorley; Jesse Smith's bright, Donegalsy, head-dithering fiddle; the agitated slam of Brendan McCarthy's whip-fingered button accordion; all swaying dangerously in the tempest of Eamonn Doorley's bouzouki, Noel Ryan's guitar and Donnchadh Gough's rimslapping bodhran. The sessions roll off-kilter betimes but, at their best, are pure incendiary. Meanwhile, Ciaran O Gealbhain's nasal-resonant, manly vocals make great integral hay of songs like Green Brooms, with an acute ear for the cut of the lyric. God's truth, youth isn't always wasted on the young.

- Mic Moroney