Album Review: Damien Dempsey, Hold Your Joy

When writing about music in Ireland, one name crops up again and again as a seminal influence on countless artists – the great Damien Dempsey. From folkies and trad heads to rappers and hip-hop performers and sweeping post-punk rockers into the mix, the Donaghmede native’s music pulses through the artistic blood of Dublin and beyond.

For good reason. He made a classic Irish album with the immensely powerful Seize The Day, as far back as 2003, all of 21 years ago. And, seven albums later, he was ahead of the posse again, with the release of the widely – and rightly – acclaimed live performance documentary film, Love Yourself Today, in 2021. In between, he has built a huge audience – and his fans love him devoutly.

Located in a creative space of his own, somewhere between the poles of Shane MacGowan and Bob Marley, Dempsey’s is an original voice, as romantic as the former, as political as the latter in his ‘70s heyday – a voice with which to spark a revolution. The opening, title track 'Hold Your Joy' is a rousing liturgical piece, which doubles as a call to arms, awakening the listener to the boundless strength of the human mind, and the possibilities inherent within.

Elsewhere, comforting ghosts of the dearly departed hover on the deeply touching ‘I Can Feel Your Presence’. It's stirring stuff: two songs in and you know Dempsey and long-term collaborator, John Reynolds, are setting the controls for the heart of the sun.

They get there, and then some.

Understanding the latent power in the eponymous character of ‘Louise’, a working-class woman of the Silent Generation is one thing, wrapping her in such a delicate ode, quite another. ‘Devil’s Dandruff’ confronts the drugs epidemic that ravages communities in stark terms. But it is not all negative: on a related theme, ‘Ray of Sun’ celebrates the incredible job that youth workers such as Damo pal Ray Corcoran do, with a heart and a half, day in day out. The searing ‘Landlords in the Government’ could not be released at a more prescient time: it is a state of the nation address that seeks a reckoning.

The gems keep on cascading. Lead single ‘Hope Calling’ possesses a wicked groove, while ‘Let it Go’ is a spectacular track, which at once raises goosebumps and lifts the soul. Ditto ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Love Is The Bomb’.

‘Shine’, meanwhile, recalls the rapping of Dempey's debut single, ‘Dublin Town’, a record that proved to be ahead of its time – and which can now be seen as a harbinger of a wealth of great homegrown music that has since come down the track.

For good measure, ‘Push Through The Blue’ and ‘Factory John’ grant permission to sing along and thereby – as at a Damo live show – tap into the latent majesty of our collective souls.

Indisputably, this is an artist at the top of his game. Sound the celebratory bells. Hold Your Joy is a mighty record. Bravo!

9/10

Out now