The term “folk” in music today represents not so much a specific genre like in the pre-‘Bringing It All Back Home’ days when it was all about singers with guitars, and maybe harmonicas. It is now more of a blank space – defined by the fact that it is not metal or rap or jazz or electronica – where the basic art of song-writing is king. This means a focus on melody, chords and lyrics and with their second EP ‘We Still Build Forts’ Red Sail give a wonderful example of what can still be done in the classic style.

The sound of the EP consists of two male & one female vocal, piano, drums, guitar and cello and while the production on the record sometimes gives the music a full dramatic sound, it is not to cover a lack in the writing department. It is a five-track EP where three of the songs could fit easily onto a ‘Best Folk Songs of 2013’ compilation. The first of these songs is the opening track Wheel Your Wings Home, and with a tasteful cello fade-in and a big powerful finishing thirty seconds it is probably the song that benefits most from the big production sound.

Sailing Song reaches a fine harmony between all the sounds Red Sail employ, and it has a great melancholy undertone, an impression you get more from listening through the music than to the basic components of the song’s production. It has the air of a great old folk tune, sung by a grizzled and grey-bearded old sailor in a salt-bitten shack by a port on a rainy evening, such is the intangible quality of it.

The final of the three great songs on this EP is the closing track Collide. It is a very slow build, but unlike other songs that utilise that method you are not sat impatiently waiting for the song to kick in properly before you can enjoy it. From the beginning, the melody played out on the guitar is just satisfying to hear. The track closes with a vocal melody that haunts you after the song finishes. You just can’t forget it, but that is a very happy problem to have in this instance.