Album Review: Mick Flannery, The House Must Win

When Mick Flannery released his debut album, Evening Train, back in 2005, he imagined a whole cast of characters inhabiting the songs. Over the intervening two decades, the Cork singer fleshed out his ideas, creating a full musical based around that debut.

The result is The House Must Win, an ambitious soundtrack to the musical of the same name, which sees Flannery joined by an array of stunning musicians to bring these songs – some old and some new – to life. Arranged by American music supervisor Liam Robinson (Hadestown), the album features a host of duets with female singers, including longtime collaborators Lisa Hannigan (‘Grace’s Waltz’), Yvonne Daly (‘Take Me With You’) and Susan O’Neill (‘The Rebel’), alongside Vermont singer Anaïs Mitchell on the beautiful ‘Rising Tide’.

Portland songwriter Jeffrey Martin joins in on the gentle ‘Talk To Me’. Musicians include Killian Browne (piano, banjo, harmonium), Niamh Varian-Barry (violin/viola), Dan Bodwell (double bass) and Dominic Mullan (drums), alongside Flannery’s brothers, Brian, David and Eamonn, who make their recorded debut on the foul-mouthed tirade of ‘Take It On The Chin’, the wonderfully Waits-ean western fable at the album’s heart.

Indeed, the spirit of Tom Waits is on the loose – the instrumentation and arrangements are reminiscent of the great man’s junkyard orchestration, from the jazz-inflected cacophony of ‘Daddy’ and ‘Ride On’, to the bar-room blues of ‘All In’ and the galloping ‘Let Me Be’. Elsewhere, the country-tinged gospel of ‘In The Gutter’ rolls like Ray LaMontagne.

Soundtracks don’t always translate into effective albums, but this 20-track collection vibrates with two decades’ worth of love, care and attention.

Superb.

8.5/10