Tony-Clayton-Lea reviews some of Ireland's recent musical output
IT HAS been 12 years since Gavin Friday released an album of original material. On the face of it (and in fairness), Friday has been a busy man with his diverse creative work on film and stage soundtracks and his role as a roving Creative Consultant for U2 (his best friends since childhood). Also, the past decade has seen quite a few pivotal changes taking place in his life: the death of his parents, not least being the cause of much soul searching. His new album, Ecce Homo, sees Friday strike out with the kind of sonic adventurousness that has been his signature style since his days as lead singer with Dublin art-rock band, the Virgin Prunes. With an overall electronic sound that is as crunchy as broken glass, the songs can barely contain themselves such is their often visceral impact. Welcome back, you might say…
YOU COULD also say welcome back to Silverbacks, whose third album, Easy Being a Winner, advances their creative reach to the point that they are no longer ingénues but rather a bona fide established presence on the Irish indie rock music landscape. With songs that reference US acts such as Talking Heads and Television, and UK bands such as The Fall, there is a pronounced post-punk sensibility to the music that rarely fails to impress. Between superb guitar work (which occasionally hints at a Thin Lizzy influence), cracking melody lines and tight rhythmic interplay, the album title is very much on the money.
SILVERBACKS are relatively new to the game, at least compared to Gilbert O'Sullivan, the Waterford-born singer and songwriter whose latest album, Songbook, reconfigures some of his best-known hits, paring them back from full-blown pop songs to jazz-tinged ballads. It’s a truism in rock and pop that if a song doesn’t work on either an acoustic guitar or piano, then no amount of stylistic huffing and puffing will make it a better one. That’s proven here with O’Sullivan (piano, vocals) and Clonakilty native Bill Shanley (guitar) amiably strolling through back catalogue tunes such as Nothing Rhymed, We Will, What’s in a Kiss, No Matter How I Try, Clair, and the stone-cold pop classic Alone Again (Naturally). The renditions might not be particularly groundbreaking, but as a testament to O‘Sullivan’s skills as a songwriter, the album is beyond solid.
Damien Dempsey (photo by Debbie Hickey/Getty Images)DID WE say solid? If there is any Irish songwriter and performer more unyielding than Damien Dempsey then we have yet to hear them. Damo’s new album, Hold Your Joy, is inspired by the Book of Joy, in which a summit meeting between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama is pieced together by journalist Douglas Abrams. Forging Dempsey’s Dublin-town growl with songs that reflect (as the acclaimed songwriter says) “the power of the mind, visualisation, gratitude, meditation, mindfulness…”, the album features positive-thinking folk/pop songs invested with Dempsey’s signature sincerity and warmth.
WE BEGAN our round-up of recent Irish album releases by welcoming back Gavin Friday. We'll also extend that greeting to Gemma Hayes, one of Ireland’s most underrated songwriters whose previous album, Bones + Longing, was released in 2014. Ten years later, Blind Faith emerges as one of the year’s best. Hayes’ absence was due to a personal decision to retreat from the public eye to raise a family, but as the little tykes began to depend on her less and less so did she begin to write songs as part self-therapy and part reflexing of creative muscles. The outcome is little short of brilliant, with songs as tough and tender as Eye for an Eye, Central Hotel, Feed the Flames, Can’t Kill a Hunger, Hardwired, and Return of the Daughters vying for your attention span. Above all, however, the album is an object lesson in how to stay true to oneself, to duty, and to the creative spirit.
See More: Albums, Irish Music Scene, Rock Music
