Though he comes across like almost every other acoustic guitar totin’ soul who has graced a mid-week open-mic session, this Killiney troubadour’s years of relentless gigging have clearly paid off. For Lynch’s much-anticipated debut oozes with a confidence, passion and steely determination unusual in a first offering.
His ragged, but powerfully-wrought voice sounds not unlike that of Glen Hansard, and he lets rip right from the off on the bouncy ‘Lucinda’, the best song on the album by a long shot. With drums and organ shoring up his unrelenting acoustic attack and a borrowed beat from ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ it’s as good as things get.
Elsewhere he immerses himself in the world-weary, tortured-soul persona typical of the genre. “Why must I apologise when I don’t know what I did wrong,” he pleads on – you guessed it – ‘Why Must I Apologise’, while ‘Bury Your Soul’ begins with the none-too-hopeful line: “The sky’s a gloomy grey, the summer’s almost gone” and gets steadily more downbeat from there. “It’s all over, I won’t be haunted by your love no more” he repeats again and again on ‘All Over The Street’, sounding every bit the type destined to be forever haunted by the said love.
Things aren’t always this gloomy: ‘Dun Laoghaire’ is an ode of sorts to the South Dublin harbour town, though his wry observations about “teenage mothers, pram pushers everywhere” and those who “feed their children happy meal dinners” might not endear him to the borough’s more upmarket inhabitants. Elsewhere, ‘Two Bullets And A Gun’ has a jaunty ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ feel about it, ‘What It Takes’ nods at Dylan and ‘Cool Water’ recall Jimmy Webb in his baladeering prime.
If it’s cheering up you need look elsewhere, but A Whisper In A Riot has its charms and should prove a winner.