A two-year time lapse can be a blink of an eye or a miniature lifetime. We Banjo 3 have traced a particularly ambitious arc since their 2012 debut, The Roots of the Banjo Tree. Gather the Good sees them take their own sweet time with a finely calibrated repertoire, excavating beneath the surface of each song with an inventiveness honed on the back of a hectic live schedule. Their love of American Old Time and bluegrass is writ large here, amplified by the addition of fiddler Fergal Scahill. But so is their own down-home originality, with David Howley's title song anchoring the collection in a panoramic sweep of optimism. Enda Scahill's It's Hard to Be 3 is another standout: contemplative and unhurried, it lets the banjo breathe free, untethered from the headlong rush towards oblivion that can hold lesser players in thrall. All in all, a deliciously bearable lightness of being. webanjo3.com