There's a downside to A J Roach being able to write songs with a built-in, handed down through generations, quality. In one of many entertaining between-song raps, the singer-songwriter-guitarist with the bona fide bluegrass country origins recalled how a learned musicologist challenged Roach's claim to be the writer of Richmond Town.

As the challenge developed into a full-scale hounding, Roach conceded that, okay, it's a traditional Appalachian murder ballad. It was a lie in pursuit of five minutes' peace, but it's easy to hear how the "expert" convinced himself he was right.

Roach sings in a voice that appears to have been marinaded in centuries of old-time religion, illicit hooch and agricultural struggle. During the all-stand-by-the-river unaccompanied hymn that is his parting shot, his voice alone can shiver the spine.

There was no shortage of shivers, though, as fiddler Alisa Rose and mandolinist-guitarist Adam Roszkiewicz embellished Roach's profound lyrical imagery with zest, spontaneity and real feeling for the subject matter. Love polygons, rather than triangles, bitter chills, bent sheriffs and a worrying cast of drug-addicted ex-girlfriends materialised to apt, down-home accompaniment.

With Roach's amusing introductions, we're further enriched. His experience of being left to roam the mean streets of Omaha - girlfriend: I'm going to Australia; Roach: well, I'm not; girlfriend: I know. When the threesome forsook the PA to deliver a come-the-rapture revelation from the front pew, as it were, it was hard to believe we were in Partick, harder still to credit that Roach remains a well-kept secret.