Album review: Dom Martin, Buried In The Hail

In Ireland, we have a serious blues tradition that embraces the likes of Van Morrison, Red Peters, the Gripewater Blues Band, Mary Stokes, the recently-emergent Muireann Bradley and lots more. Another must-hear is the award-winning Dom Martin from Belfast, whose Buried In The Hail is his third album.

Lifting its title from Dylan’s ‘Shelter From The Storm’, it opens with some lush acoustic guitar on ‘Hello In There’. That doesn’t quite prepare us for the stompingly brilliant ‘Daylight I Will Find’, which places Martin’s blues-soaked vocal over infectiously dirty guitar. You can almost taste the muddy water of the Lagan delta.

‘Unhinged’ slouches along with a tidy groove, before Martin launches into a Rory Gallagher-style solo that does the business and then some. His take on ‘Crazy’ might vocally stray too close to Tom Waits for comfort, but the solo in ‘Lefty 2 Guns’ is less Gallagher and more Gilmour, with Martin’s playing full of clear-noted virtuosity.

Throughout, the sparse production by Chris O’Brien makes the most of Martin’s unerring compositional talents, as well as the slick work of bassist Ben Graham and drummer Jimmy McIlroy. Buried In The Hail is an appropriate soundtrack for the times that are in it – and confirmation of a major Irish talent to boot.

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