The second album from Ian Read"s Fire + Ice is positively bursting with influences from his past. Featuring former band mates and members of Psychic TV, Death in June, Sol Invictus and Current 93, in his musical career, now spanning almost 20 years. The album is gorgeously arranged, guitar-driven neofolk at its best. Read"s wonderful counterpoint vocal harmonies are a perfect compliment to instrumentation, which includes flute, guitar and even a lute. Really, lute is a lost art, isn"t it? At times nearly indistinguishable from Thunder Perfect Mind era Current 93, Read"s voice is all that separates the two. Hollow Ways is Ian Read"s musical and lyrical take on the mysteries which hide under and within Northern Europe"s often dark and certainly intriguing history and even present day (if one knows how and where to look). There will be those who find clues to ancient practices here also.