The Young'uns are just that: three 20-something men, Sean Cooney, David Eagle and Michael Hughes. In this case, young only by the calendar; they sing as if far older than their years, and their attention is turned to a musical and historical past well before their time. Though the songs are mostly originals, many seem as if dredged out of distant, if distinctly local, memory. When Our Grandfathers Said No is a quote from their self-composed "The Battle of Stockton," a ballad recalling a 1933 episode in the group's native northeastern, then heavily industrial England, when down-on-their-luck working stiffs confronted a band of brownshirts and sent them packing.

The emphasis is on close-harmony singing, affecting but hard-edged and associated with a recognizable English revival style (e.g., the Watersons, the Voice Squad). The band members are nearly as adept as writing trad-sounding material as the late Ewan MacColl was. If MacColl was always controversial and little liked, no one ever disputed his magnificent songwriting gift, as evidence of which more than a few of his compositions are regularly mistaken for hardy old-timers. (Next time you see "The Shoals of Herring" on an album, check the composer credits.) All the more remarkably, the Young'uns are fairly new to folk music. A surprising cover of James Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes" prompts the explanation that "this was one of the first songs the three of us ever sang together, before we were the Young'uns and before we stumbled across traditional folk song."

The production leans toward the spare, sometimes no more than the three voices, sometimes ornamented with accordion and guitar, occasionally a few other instruments. The voices are at the forefront, however, and never fail to move the song and the listener. The trio elevates "Wild Goose," by the late Canadian folksinger-songwriter Wade Hemsworth, to epic status in a particularly riveting performance and sophisticated arrangement. It's followed by the quieter, understated closer, "Jenny Waits for Me," as if to leave the listener with a lasting reminder of the group's range.

My only complaint, a small one, is that Grandfathers features no genuinely traditional songs. That's not to say that the songs that are there are in any way unworthy. It's just that I'd like to hear what they can do with the actual sources of their remarkable music.