I don't think Rail Yard Ghosts have let anyone down with their brand new double album, Hiraeth. If you are unfamiliar with Rail Yard Ghosts, you are definitely not a traveling punk, DIY kid or spend much time under train bridges. But fear not, you don't need to hop a freight train to get into the vivid, dreamy, and chaotic world that the band paints in Hiraeth.


It feels dangerous to label this album as folk punk, for the sole reason hat it's a term that doesn't do it justice. The album, aptly named after a Welsh word for 'homesickness, tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed', plays out around a story of traveling. Songs are interspersed with conversations around a crackling fire, and on the back of freight trains. The extended album pulls you into a world where by the end of it, you feel like you just went across the country with the band. Perhaps experimental in it's own right, it's definitely a departure from previous Rail Yard Ghosts writing, in the sense that they have intentionally created a cohesive story that plays out through song, poetry and the aforementioned conversations.


There are of course many classic Rail Yard Ghosts elements throughout, and a number of catchy folk punk sing alongs will keep everyone stomping until the wee hours ("I smell the blood of a policeman, I smell the blood of a policeman" - "The March Of The Ogres").

Filled out with a ten member line up, there is a fierce intensity to many songs, and then this complete change to atmospheric and gentle progressions. Maybe it's how dynamic the band has become that has really made this album so complete.