Small Mercies Hag's Head****

Jubilee Allstars, Barry McCormack's old band, were a fantastically contrarian presence on the Dublin music scene during the past decade. They weren't the most prolific or career-minded, but the records they did release were objects of beauty, channelling as they did a type of D6 Americana that has continued (somewhat) in the fine tradition of Stephen Ryan and Stan Erraught. McCormack's new album is a wondrous affair in the same vein, writing of a post- boom Dublin landscape in the way that you only thought Phil Chevron was capable of. "Find a ditch and cover your head, the sky is falling down," McCormack sings on Hard Times, and throughout this album you'll find some of the best – let's just call it alt.folk – music of the year. A triumph. See barry mccormack.com

Download tracks: Something About a Place, Hard Is the Rain, The Secrets of the Breakfast Monks