This review has been sitting half written on my hard disc for some months. I won this from Stuart for insulting him, yes really. I have been suffering the guilt of performance pressure, wanting to write a review that would do it justice.
But I fail. In the end, I think it is overall a pleasant album, with some truly fabulous tracks. But so often, when people produce double CDs, they tend to have stick some mediocre fillers on, and this is no exception.
It's an eclectic collection, and I'm not sure whether that is good or bad. A mixture of some religious or quasi-religious music - Sinead's voice has always been haunting. It then slides into Gaelic-influenced music - with uileann pipes, fiddles, the whole she-bang. I really like the unexpected cover versions: Love Hurts - a gloriously chaotic cacophony of wind and percussion; Chiquitita, which works, quite different from ABBA, but good.
Brigidine Diana - a tribute to the late Ms Spencer. Ought to annoy me but doesn't, because it stops just short of schmaltzy. Not memorable musically. After that it really does get a bit anally arsy. Or as my Jimmy said sadly, "Oh, Sinead..."
I think perhaps she is trying to experiment with too many different styles - reggae, ambient. And then there are some memorable tracks: Emma's Song, Dense Water Deeper Down; This is a Rebel Song
The second disc is a live set, much of it trad. Irish, or influenced by trad Irish, not least in the instrumentation. Molly Malone is the sort of ditty one learns at Primary School. Nothing Special. But Sinead imbues it with such passion and feeling. Various songs that sound traditionally Irish. As a contrast, Nothing compares 2 U is wonderful.
I like Sinead's voice, and I like her attitude. but I don't like all of her songs or her views. It takes courage to mix-and-match in that way, and some of the tracks really don't come off, such as 1000 Mirrors, which wants to be ambient bhangra, I think.
I have played it quite a few times (look, I'm not sticking perfectly to my anally retentive alphabetical sequencing) and I will play it again. If you already have a liking for Sinead, I would get it, but I don't think this is going to win any converts to her cause.
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