The Battlefield Band, Room Enough for All (Temple Records COMD2016)

The lineup this time around is: Mike Katz, bagpipes (a Los Angeles-raised convert to Scottish music - wonderful piper!), Alasdair White & Ewen Henderson (twin fiddles, plus Ewen backing up Mike Katz with the war-pipes and the small pipes, and Alasdair also on tenor guitar), and, last but far from least, Sean O'Donnell, on vocals and guitar. With these riches, the departure of founding member Alan Reid is certainly mitigated: but with Mike Whellan gusting on harmonica [!], you've got the makings of an even better Battllefield. Robin Morton is, as ever, the man behind the men.

Eleven cuts all told, opening with a beautiful version of "Bagpipe Music," Sean's setting for Louis MacNeice's poem, which was written originally following a visit to the Hebrides. Mike Katz' small pipes & bouzouki follow Sen's lead vocals, with Ewen's fiddle and vocals, and Alasdair on guitar (fine notes, BTW, probably by Robin Morton, unless I'm wrong).

The following instrumental medley demonstrates why the Battlefield Band is and remains Scotland's traditional-music champion: the 4/4 march which opens the medley, "Major George Morrison, DSO," permits Mike Katz to flourish his pipes, assisted by Ewen Henderson (pipes, vocals and fiddle), with Alasdair chiming in on the low whistle, and twin-fiddling with Ewen. A Lewis-born jig, with som light-heated puirt-a-beul singing by Ewen, follows, and the medley ends with a tribute (The Pneumatic Drills) to Ewen's Glasgow friends. [You cannot make this kind of thing up - it's the Battlefield Band for you!)

"Farewell to Indiana" follows, an unusual song (most Scotsmen - like most immigrants - find it hard indeed to leave their adopted homeland, certainly once there are grandchildren to be left when they return to Scotland - ah well). Here's where Mike Whellans tunes up his harmonica - traditional blues instrument, anyone? - and Ewen's small pipes - made for parlor playing - make this a sweetly beautiful half-lament/ half-swagger, given voice by Sean's lead vocals. Would you believe - it's only the third cut...?

A set of strathspeys, beginning with "The Garron Trotting" running on to "Glengarry," then "Cawdor Fair," will get everyone up on the floor for the virtuosic twin-fiddling of Alasdair and Ewen which follows - don't you love it when there's alternation in instrument and vocals in a recording? - mingling old tunes from various Scottish settlements in near-torrential fashion. This set of traditional tunes, arranged by the Battlefield Band, concludes with a polka-setting - but of course - of the reel, "The Merry Lads of Ayr," and Alasdair's re-setting of the Nova Scotian version of "The Cuckoo," leading naturally into the Gaelic song, "Nic Coiseam" (Cut 5). sung once more, with twin-fiddling, by Ewen Henderson and Alasdair White.

D'you mind if I take a breather? There's six more songs and instrumental medleys to go yet - this would be a fine CD to put on your player for those who lament the loss of Aly Bain's old crew, The Boys of the Lough, let me tell you.... "Room enough for All," did the man say? The notes, I must confess, are worth the price of the CD itself - the music should, it seems to me, be listened thro once without looking at the notes, once with the notes being read concurrent with the music, and then again, no notes, just the lovely music - ould briar pipe in hand, perhaps, eyes closed, getting drunk on a wee dram o' 18-year-old single malt... This, at any rate, is my recommendation to lovers of fine Scottish music. Others may differ, of course, but who are you going to listen to, your own ears or somebody else's?