Bridie Jackson and the Arbour

Walking into St. Pancras Old Church is a pleasure in itself, the small but perfectly formed building has been a site of Christian worship since the 4th century and it's very walls somehow exude a knowing tranquillity that feeds the soul.

Tonight the candles were out for Bridie Jackson and the Arbour, with The Lords of Thyme warming the seated audience with their acoustic mélange of sound. It wasn't long until the female four-piece took to the stage and the solid stone walls were filled with their folk infused tales of sadness.

There is a haunting quality to Bridie Jackson and the Arbour which makes their particular strain of folk stand out from the mass market glut that record companies seem to be churning out. A far flung fantasy that breaks the listener free from their surroundings.

This tour was to promote their second album 'New Skin' which is certainly worth a place in anyone's record collection. 'Diminutive Man', 'Prolong' and the apt 'We Talked Again' which I now refer to as "the bell plate one" all made a welcome appearance, the setting now coming into its own.

Their Newcastle roots are laid bare in 'Sandgate Dandling Song' a Tyneside Folk track stemming from the early 19th and sung in their local dialect, it's this affection with the past combined with a yearning to reinvent that is at their heart.

Theirs is an unpretentious sound whose ripples are spreading far and wide.