Britain's oldest surviving folk-rock band allied to the archetypal indie punk record label! Even for Fairport Convention, which has defied time, tide and trauma in its pursuit of the electric folk dream, that's pushing it. But actually, the most remarkable thing about Red & Gold is that the astute choice of tunes, full-bodied arrangements and delicious picking (or sawing, in the case of violinist Ric Sanders) sound like the work of a Fairport half – nay, a fifth – its age. The last time there was a Fairport album this inspired, punk was just a concept and this magazine cost only seventy-five cents.

Red & Gold is the third studio album by the late-Eighties-model Fairport, whose experienced core includes charter guitarist Simon Nicol and the two veteran Daves, Pegg and Mattacks, on bass and drums. So they've had some time to get it right. In the case of the album's striking opener, the deceptively bittersweet "Set Me Up," that means expertly burnishing the group's roots gestures with lightly applied pop varnish – like the tingly, Byrdsy twang buffed up with six-string synthetics by junior guitarist Martin Allcock. The expression of tender longing in "Dark Eyed Molly," rooted in old Gaelic verse, is gingerly amplified by the unlikely blend of wintry keyboards, fluid glissando bass and Sanders's lightly dancing violin, not to mention Nicol's firm, yearning vocal.

You'd never guess that Allcock's brash instrumental "The Noise Club," a jiglike tune cut up in odd rhythmic fractions, features dashes of computerized guitar and drums unless you read the inner-sleeve fine print. But that's as it should be. The best of Fairport Convention's myriad incarnations are always those that marry then and now into a timeless whole. Consider the title track. Written by British folk contemporary Ralph McTell, it describes an English civil war battle that was fought at Cropredy, the very site where Fairport now stages its annual reunion festivals, and the band performs the song with a bristling gentility appropriate to its all-too-modern moral: Killing in God's name is still killing. Then there's the brassy stomp through Bob Dylan's "Open the Door Richard," which hearkens back to Fairport's early cover days but rocks like Bob just dashed it off yesterday.

Maybe the best thing about Red & Gold is that it's the first Fairport album in ages that doesn't beg comparisons with the group's classic work with Richard Thompson or the late Sandy Denny. It just sounds like a great record by a fine new band – with twenty-two years of practice. (RS 554)

DAVID FRICKE