Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sinéad O'Connor's new album is the collection of traditional folk songs that she has put off recording for far too long. Heartbreaking tunes such as "The Parting Glass", "Molly Malone" and "Lord Franklin" are illuminated from within by the fiery purity of that extraordinary voice.
The material may be traditional, but there's nothing straightforward about Sinéad's renditions, which are annotated with typically quixotic interpretations. The love song "Peggy Gordon" is characterised as an expression of lesbian desire, and "The Singing Bird" as a prayer in praise of Jah – which, she claims, "has healing effects upon the singer". It's a bit like one of those modern TV costume dramas that attempt to impose 21st-century attitudes on Victorian narratives – though the core material here is plenty strong enough to withstand whatever insights she brings to it.
With co-producer Donal Lunny tending to the arrangements, the instrumental backdrops are persuasive in the ambient Irish mode Lunny has made his own, with gentle hints of violin and whistle establishing a warm, bucolic atmosphere behind foreground acoustic guitar. Dub effects are used here and there (the UK's premier dubmeister, Adrian Sherwood, is involved with five tracks) to add to the ethereality of the material. The results are particularly effective on "Lord Franklin", where the mistiness evokes both the mystery of the lost Arctic explorer and the plight of the wife left searching vainly for him. Likewise, the ghostly dub echoes of "Paddy's Lament" convey the regret of the emigrant immediately conscripted into Lincoln's army upon his arrival in America.
Regret and misery figure heavily in many of these songs. There is, at least, a happy ending to "Lord Baker", a beautifully understated duet with Christy Moore – though even then it seems begrudged, the listener forced to wait nearly 12 minutes for it. But the more dolorous songs are counterbalanced by others recalled from Sinéad's childhood, such as "I'll Tell Me Ma" (aka "The Belle of Belfast City"), "Báidín Fheilimí" and "Óró, Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile", the latter a lovely, rousing canter in tribute to Grace O'Malley, an Elizabethan warrior-noblewoman.
Devoid of the sermonising and personal problems that spoilt previous releases, Sean-Nós Nua is the best album of Sinéad O'Connor's chequered career, a focused and sensitive work with no unnecessary baggage and plenty of good tunes. My only gripe is that, like so many CDs nowadays, it's just too long: if it had ended with the wistful "The Parting Glass", the natural album-closer, it would have been quite perfect, but a further 20-odd minutes serve only to dilute its impact.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments