Solas have become Irish America's most inventive band by mixing their Celtic roots with country and Americana in their sturdy, melodic and thoughtful songs. Their latest album is an emotional and angry concept work chronicling the life of Michael Conway, the great-great-uncle of the band's co-founder, multi-instrumentalist Séamus Egan. Conway left Ireland in 1910 to work in the copper mines of Butte, Montana, and was killed six years later in a confrontation with police, and his story allows for songs about immigration, hard times and escapism in the mining community known as Shamrock City, along with political comment. The emotional ballads Far Americay and Welcome the Unknown are helped by fine instrumental work (especially the fiddle playing of Winifred Horan), and there are appearances from Rhiannon Giddens of Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Scottish folk veteran Dick Gaughan, with the angry Labour Song. Impressive.