This is the Irish troubadour’s fifth studio album. In it, he explores the contrasting fates life can foist upon us. And it’s that sense of life’s realistic possibilities that separates Roesy from some of his more escapist rivals. ‘Cast Your Line’ takes an optimistic look at connectedness, but to stave off any complacency it’s followed by a chilling interpretation of the old blues chestnut ‘Motherless Child’, with a forlorn arrangement and a relentless, doom-laden stomp under Roesy’s plaintive vocal. The jaunty ‘Together’ gets him back on a more upbeat track, and there’s an aching wistfulness to the title track, but in ‘Truth Is In Your Heart’ he tells us that “Truth is in your heart, as it’s been from the start”. It would be folly to argue with a simple, unassailable truth like that.
The tentative ‘Stardust’, meanwhile, has a touch of Rufus Wainwright in some of the melodic inflections.
Fable sees Roesy expand his range beyond the guitar/vocal format, the banjo on ‘Million To One’ and the electric guitar on the voodoo-ish ‘Need Some Time Alone’ being prime examples, but he does so with a tenderness that lovingly embellishes his fine creations. Roesy’s lyrics suggest a source of simple, undiluted wisdom we might all benefit from tapping into. In a world of Jedwards and Crystal Swings, how wonderful it would be if everything in the garden was Roesy.