Fringe Dwellers by The Barleyshakes

The Barleyshakes 7th album release, and definitely their best yet. A fabulous blend of original, traditional, and modern folk songs and instrumentals.
Rhythm Magazine review by Tony Hillier Sep-Oct 2015.

Fringe Dwellers verifies why The Barleyshakes, a band founded in Dublin, have been a fixture on the domestic folk festival circuit since migrating to Australia 15 years ago. The Noosa Heads-based sextet’s seventh album is indicative of their concerts, offering a well-played and well-balanced mixture of Irish-flavoured instrumentals and songs, covers and originals. Bandleader Alan Kelly is a gifted songwriter in the folk tradition whose rollicking ‘The Smell Of The Whiskey’ would have been a more exciting choice for opener than a cover of Scottish singer Karine Polwart’s earnest ‘Rivers Run’.
Another fine Kelly composition, ‘The Sailor And The Maid’, outstrips Jez Lowe’s ‘Another Man’s Wife’, which follows. Roger Ilott’s stirring fracking/mining broadside ‘Whitehaven Coal’ is the pick of the covers. A couple of traditional reel and polka medleys and a set of contemporary jigs illustrate The Barleyshakes’ flair for instrumental arrangement and execution.
Tony Hillier

The Barleyshakes are a highly evolved Celtic organism, performing and recording for over 20 years since they formed in Dublin in 1994. In 2000 three members moved to Australia and a new line up emerged from the ashes. They’ve won the Queensland Music Award for World music composition and performed in over 20 countries to date.

barleyshakes.com