Following on from his hugely enjoyable foray into American hobo/boho folk’n’blues on Wrong Road Home, Glasgow’s Robin Adams returns to more familiar territory on Sun Behind The Storm, a brief eight song collection which is perhaps the most personal and elemental of his albums so far. It’s stark, just Adams and his guitar for the most part, yet within the bare bones of the songs there’s a sense of beauty and wonder, mixed with pools of despair and defiance. For those who suggest that Adams is following in the footsteps of singular singer/songwriters such as Nick Drake, John Martyn and Bert Jansch, the album goes a long way to confirm this.

There’s a sense that Adams is reflecting on the past here. The title song was originally released as a single 10 years ago but never made it onto an album until now. There’s also a song written when Adams was just 18 along with a song which first saw the light of day on an album, Refugee, curated by Adams back in 2016, a song which is increasingly pertinent today. There is certainly a nostalgic bent to the album for those of a certain age who remember the heyday of “bedsit” albums featuring earnest (and oft times tortured) young men pouring out their innermost thoughts. Having said that, Adams rises well above any such nostalgia, able to sit beside the likes of Will Oldham in his reclamation of folk music.

The album opens with the stunning title song. Adams’ guitar playing is quite beautiful here, so reminiscent of Jansch at times, while the song itself sees him finding solace in his belief that better days are ahead no matter how dark it seems. This slight sense of optimism is so fragile however that the overall feel of the song is one of uncertainty, of a hope that could easily be shattered, the singer withdrawing into a comfort zone of his own making. This inner world is further explored on Hit The Ground Running, a song which details the fragility of the balance between hope and despair as Adams sings “Doubt comes crashing down, breaking into fragments.”  Catapult is a song written when a youthful Adams was struggling with depression. Closeted, agoraphobic, Adams rails defiantly against his dread mood, singing, “Don’t walk, don’t run, don’t go outside in the sun. Don’t have a life that goes beyond the thought of now – I don’t think so, somehow.”

The remainder of the songs are less introspective although several still pertain to personal experiences as on the charming To The Sea which Adams explains as being about the joy and anticipation one experiences whenever a seaside trip is planned. It’s a couthy Scots equivalent of all those CSN&Y songs which celebrate the ocean and is all the better for that. Sweet Sturnidae is the second song of the album which we would call stunning as Adams pulls out all of the stops, singing about the mesmerising spectacle of murmurations of starlings (Sturnidae being their orthinological name). Here he’s accompanied by Graham Smith (of String Driven Thing fame) on violin and Pete Harvey on cello and the song has a glorious autumnal feel.

Pushed And Pulled opens with a Dylan like harmonica wheeze as Adams goes into folk rock mode on a song which, with a Dylan like opaqueness, seems to refer to the plight of refugees. The song opens with the line, “We’re all ghosts floating out at sea, you and I and humanity” as Adams likens their plight to pawns on a political chessboard. It’s followed by the much more direct The Devil’s War And The Deep Blue Sea, originally recorded for a charity album. Sadly, it’s a powerful song which is even more pertinent today than when it was originally recorded. Overall, Sun Behind The Storm is quite breathtaking in its honesty and delivery.