Road To The Heart, the debut album by Dublin band Clancy, has taken on an especially sad resonance with the sudden death last week of its main auteur, Paul Clancy. I had written this review before the news came through; there is nothing essentially different in what I have to say now about an album that has tragically become Paul’s final legacy except that, well, it is indeed final.
The record is special. Like all really satisfying albums, Road To The Heart brings the listener on a journey, its ten tracks forming separate paths towards the same universal point: an authentic exploration of love and the human heart.
Sugar-sweet platitudes are distinctly missing here – Clancy’s expedition along this path, as symbolised by the knight on the cover, is lyrically brave, tough and (an unfashionable word, I know) noble, and the music matches those qualities.
The tracks were written mainly by Paul, formerly drummer/singer/songwriter with Dublin-based outfit The National Prayer Breakfast, who released three studio albums around the turn of the millennium; the unit Clancy included Kevin Connolly, and on these recordings the two friends and musical co-conspirators were ably assisted with additional vocals and instrumentals by Les Keye and Conor Brennan.
The result is a seamless, usually dead-slow, and in the best sense careful sound, a sort of masculine take on The Cowboy Junkies. Leonard Cohen is clearly a strong influence, both in the style of singing and the sentiments expressed; in this, Clancy succeeded where many others fail, keeping on the right side of maudlin self-indulgence. There are some great observations about love on this record: ‘Sad Song’ describes “the pain that goes/ with yearning for something in another/ that you can’t find in yourself”, while ‘Waiting Patiently’ articulates the real depth of love that is reflected in a fond acceptance of the other’s imperfections.
“Let love beat a path to your door” is the kernel of the advice to be found in these laidback, reflective songs, wrapped up with impressively lived-in vocals. Altogether, Road To The Heart is a very fine, late-night record, for which Kevin Connolly also deserves huge credit and respect. The saddest thing is that for Paul Clancy the journey is over. It will be small consolation just now to his friends and those who loved him, but this music will live on and give us something beautiful to remember him by.