Album Review: David Keenan, Modern Mythologies

Dundalk’s David Keenan would appear to be Ireland’s most natural successor to the increasingly hermetic Damien Rice, in that Keenan very much ploughs his own musical furrow, unaffected by trends, styles or what he thinks an audience might want to hear. In fact, if Rice and Luka Bloom had a child, this is how you might expect them to sound.

This fourth album sees Keenan playfully experimenting with jazz, folk, rock, country and even hip-hop, as he unveils these dozen superb songs (with an extra four on the deluxe edition), filled with a host of chancers, losers and anti-heroes who could have walked in from any small town across the island.

Opener ‘Amelioration’ is all slinky rhythm and brass, like Van Morrison jamming with James Vincent McMorrow, leading into the countrified confessional of ‘50 Quid Man’, a wonderful tale of dodgy boxes and small-town hucksters.

‘Incandescent Morning’ is a stunning juxtaposition of Catholic heritage and raw sex; ‘Romantic In Me’ is all yearning electric guitar straight from the Neil Young songbook; and the nervy ‘Poison Water’ is an angry anti-paramilitary polemic. Then there’s the country-tinged lament of ‘The Fool’s Gold’, recalling Mundy at his best, and the yearning ‘Suriname Or Bust’.

‘Rebel Tune’ is a magnificent underdog love letter, while the gorgeous ‘Radiate A Smile’ is another likeable love song filled with a host of memorable characters. The heartbreaking ‘Lives Left Out To Dry’ and ‘Copper Vat’ look at the sad curse of addiction in our rural towns and villages, where the high stool and the long counter are the only future some can ever envision.

The stunning ‘We Live, We Learn, We Love’ is a spoken word, state-of-the-nation address that comes across like LL Cool J’s ‘I Need Love’ shot through with pure Dundalk brogue.

Of the extra four songs on the deluxe edition, the best is the black humour and raw heart of ‘Reaper Grim’, where Keenan references Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, in whose company this magnificent album can comfortably sit.

This is widescreen, outward looking, world-embracing stuff, as Keenan manages that difficult trick of making the personal universal and bringing Dundalk to the wider world.

’Hon the Town.

9/10