The Boggs have lurched out of the New York underground, but sound as if they dragged themselves out of a graveyard in Appalachia after being resuscitated by radioactive moonshine whiskey.

Vocalist and songwriter Jason Friedman sings in a petrified scarecrow croak while his three compatriots whip up an eerie backdrop of banjo, fiddle, slide guitar, accordion and good old-fashioned stomp.

Although capable of being mistaken for a party band from a distance, they can also spook the hell out of you (listen to On North Wood Ground, a chilling lament where Friedman sings as though from the mortician's slab).

The album was recorded in two days, but the songs are so stark and resonant they sound as if they have been hovering in the air for 300 years.