SCOTTISH four-piece Rura are back after a three-year hiatus and their return is as welcome as it is overdue.

Announcing their arrival in style with 2012’s superb Break It Up, the band quickly became one of the most exciting on the traditional music scene in Scotland. A stunning mix of tunes and song, the album helped launch the career of Adam Holmes, whose numbers peppered the debut album and 2015’s follow-up Despite The Dark.

The mix of driving pipes with supercharged fiddle, accompanied by guitar, whistles and flute, was delightfully fresh and, despite the band’s youthfulness, displayed emotional depth and maturity throughout.

The songs complemented the tunes and set Holmes on his way to becoming one of the country’s finest young singer-songwriters. Rura were a band in demand.

And now they are back with their new album In Praise Of Home.

There have been, however, some changes. Holmes is no longer with the band – he leaves with their best wishes – as he pursues his career with Adam Holmes and the Embers and the result is a return to what bodhran and flute player David Foley describes as the “original Rura sound”.

The album is the first the band have recorded that is purely instrumental and all the tracks are self-penned. It is an exceptional piece of work, combining the band’s talents as musicians with their growing confidence.

“We wanted to get back to what we were originally and that was performing instrumental tunes,” says Foley. “So this album is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time with just instrumental music.

“It’s a much more varied album in terms of the music, which is partly down to the fact that there are no songs, but also just because of how our sound has evolved,” explains Foley.

Bringing the band together to begin the writing and recording process was, however, more difficult than the band imagined.

“Getting us all in the same place at the same time was difficult because we’re all involved in different projects,” says Foley. “We all look at Rura as our main band but we all also enjoy having other things to get our teeth into, artistically.

“The music, itself, however came quite naturally.”

It’s perhaps not surprising that the band gel musically. Rura formed when Jack Smedley (fiddle), Steven Blake (pipes and whistles), and Foley were studying at the Royal Conservatoire.

“We were asked to play at a Piping Live gig by Finlay MacDonald and that’s really when we started,” says Foley.

“Finlay was a huge influence on us, especially Steven.”

The band then performed at Celtic Connections in 2010, the first of seven annual appearances at the festival where they have been amassing fans and impressing critics along the way.

“We all come from a traditional music background,” says Foley. “Myself and Adam Brown (guitar), grew up playing Irish music as we had Irish families, while Jack is from the north-east so he was born into that fiddle tradition. Steven, meanwhile, came through the pipe band system.”

The band’s sound has evolved in the years since that first incarnation. And In Praise Of Home is a perfect illustration of where Rura are now. It is sleek without ever being overproduced, the vocal samples (taken from interviews with Foley’s grandmother and Smedley’s grandfather, who share their tales of home) work to complement the tunes and the result is an album worthy of Rura and the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the band.

Smedley says: “For us In Praise Of Home celebrates our progression as a band – this was one of the biggest motivators behind us composing all of the music together as a four-piece.

“The primary overarching theme for this album is all of us getting back to our roots as instrument-alists, composing and playing together as a group, whilst at the same time showcasing a progression in our sound. We’re pretty happy with the result.”

Foley agrees: “The music has gone back to its roots and you can hear what we set out to be originally, yet the music has evolved and come into its own with ourselves writing all the music on the album, and specifically writing for the original Rura sound.”

While the band’s live performances have always been energetic affairs, does Foley believe the absence of songs on the new album mean they are now wedded to a bounce-around, big-festival vibe? Or will they always look to retain those moments of serenity and melancholy which make them stand out from the crowd?

“We have always been able to do either or. A lot of the music we do is loud and suited to festivals, I guess, but we’ve always wanted to be able to do both.

“This album certainly has a lot of tunes that are not ones you would jump around and go wild to but they are written in among ones that definitely are,” Foley adds. “We are just as happy doing more quiet sit-down concerts as we are doing festivals.”

The band will be following up the release with a UK tour and then it’s off to Canada and then, when other projects allow, it will be time to get back together and start thinking about their fourth album.

“We had such a good experience of this and how we went about this album that we’re excited about the next one. We’re no longer making the mistakes we did sometimes in the past.”

The growing confidence of Rura is clear to see from In Praise Of Home and it is also clear that this return to the band’s roots has produced one of the albums of the year.

In Praise of Home is released on June 1. Rura start their tour in Findhorn on June 6 and finish up at the Drygate, Glasgow, on June 30