Hank Dogs: The Ivy House, Nunhead

TEN YEARS THEY'VE done this, and few are any the wiser. Even when Nick Drake's legendary producer Joe Boyd declared Hank Dogs the first British act he'd loved in 30 years, and helped to record their 1998 debut, Bareback — an eerie album of dryly funny emotional bloodletting that forged a new direction for folk — it caused few ripples here. In the States, things went well, but their record label's sale and other, undisclosed delays have stopped their second album, Half Smile, appearing in Britain until tonight, where it's sold in the back room of this Peckham pub.