The Haar
King’s Place, London
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

TWO Irish, two English, three men in black and one red-haired woman in white — “three lumps of coal and a flame,” as one fan has described them — the Haar are an appealing conglomeration.

Purveyors of accessible folk with an upbeat outlook, despite the frequently melancholic subject matter of their music, they’ve been around since 2019, and are using this evening to announce the date of their third album — 5 December.

There are two offerings from that recording in the shape of The Galway Shawl and Anachie Gordon, which has been a favourite of their live shows for some time. But the main body of songs are from the previous two, and are drawn from a much older traditional repertoire – among them Carrickfergus, Wild Mountain Thyme, Wild Rover and She Moved Through the Fair.

On vocals, in her proper folk singer’s dress and choker, Molly Donnery is an absorbing presence, her fine voice enhanced by heartfelt delivery, sometimes on her knees.

The English pair, Adam Summerhayes on fiddle and Murray Grainger on accordion, lend an unusual air to the overall sound, including, in Grainger’s case, on the little known Vibrandoneon, a mouth-blown accordion with a chromatic keyboard that was invented in Italy in 1999.

Cormac Byrne, a bodhran master, does wonders with his instrument, retuning it for each song and decorating his rumbling base sounds with exclamatory clicks on its rim.

Having come together by chance at the Craiceann bodhran festival in Ireland, the band’s stated aim is for spontaneity, based around a fair splash of improvisation, and while the whole effect is highly polished, the overall feeling is indeed surprisingly fresh, given the reliance on well-established material.

Best evidence of that is their rousing rendition of Whiskey in the Jar, which has the audience on its feet at the death and a fair few hustling to the merch desk to sign up for early orders of the new album The Lost Day. 

The Lost Day (Under The Eaves Records) will be released on December 5 2025.