A second LP from the Irish singer which feels unforced, spontaneous and timeless.
County Meath’s Lisa Hannigan once harboured theatrical ambitions but first came to public attention not as a thespian but as the counterpoint voice (and occasional lead) in Damien Rice’s band. Quitting that successful, but for a fledgling songwriter, increasingly frustrating franchise in 2007, Hannigan’s hastily recorded solo debut of 2008, See Sew, gained her a Mercury Music Prize nomination and platinum sales. With the release of Passenger, Hannigan, now 30, seems to be drawing a line under all that, or at least signalling the end of a lengthy apprenticeship and the arrival of a mature singer-songwriter possessed of an idiosyncratic yet thoroughly accessible gift.
Produced (in Wales, curiously) by US troubadour and sometime Solomon Burke and Loudon Wainwright knob-twiddler Joe Henry, Passenger proffers 10 by turns vigorous and softly spun essays on ‘journeys’, both literal and metaphorical, couched in often lavish but oddly askew chamber arrangements that can strum up a storm or weave delicate filigrees while always circumventing Celtic or generic folk-rock cliché. At its core lies Hannigan’s voice, a thing of velvety, husky seduction, able to invoke innocence and world-weariness with equal alacrity (sometimes both simultaneously), oscillating deliriously between kittenish, Beth Gibbons-like mewl, soaring, Emmylou Harris descant and introverted Joni Mitchell-ism, while always retaining her own, slightly puckish identity.
Lees de rest van deze review op BBC CD recensies (Engels)
Bron: BBC Music