Danny Burns is close to sui generis: a Nashville musician of Irish origin on a label generally affiliated with bluegrass, though he is not himself a bluegrass artist. Nor is he country in any conventional sense. He is not -- yet -- a singer-songwriter either.

He does boast a modern acoustic sound that, if folk-adjacent, is not that genre in a traditional or even ordinary modern manifestation. He certainly isn't pop, though there are occasional hints of it. But Burns is unusually adept at integrating these disparate forms into a distinctive sort of 21st-century rooted music.

Southern Sky, his third album, is the second I have heard and reviewed in this space. Though I liked Promised Land (9 September 2023), it took me aback sufficiently that I never overcame a bit of irrational confusion or unease about it. Either the new recording testifies to two years' worth of progress in perfecting the idea of what he wants to do on stage and in studio, or I am just better prepared for it this time.

Here we have a creatively conceived, capably executed collection of songs mostly by talented writers whom you probably won't recognize unless you know the likes of Buddy Miller, Tim O'Brien and Jamie Hartford, in other words independent artists connected to Nashville but not necessarily willing to sacrifice their independence to swim in the cesspool of commerce at its basest. (Any checks that happened to come their way via that location would be promptly signed and cashed, of course; it's just that the musicians in question refuse to be shameless hacks in order to get there.) Miller's hard-country "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger?" was a 2000 chart-topper, though for the admired honkytonk traditionalist Lee Ann Womack.

Burns's byline is more prominent in these grooves than in the previous release. One suspects he is working his way toward full-time singer-songwriter status, the inevitable destination of just about all roots acts these days, alas. Still, his own songs are decent enough, and I doubt anyone will object to their presence. But to my taste the two stand-out tracks are Tim O'Brien's"Brother Wind," an appealingly original take on the hoary ramblin'-man trope, and Richard Thompson's blistering classic "Keep Your Distance," which should be near the top of any listener's all-time favorite break-up anthems. It's a true story, too.