Album Review: Niall Breslin, The Place That Has Never Been Wounded

If you’d have told someone in the lad-tastic year 2000 that a Leinster Rugby player, of all people, is making an album centered around mindfulness, they would have sputtered their pint of cheap pissy lager in your face, before asking if ‘Mental Health’ was a new brand of energy drink.

This Niall Breslin LP is a testament to how destigmatised looking after your grey matter has become. It is also the score to his own battles and journey, from injury-plagued athlete, to platinum-selling frontman with The Blizzards, to award-winning mental health advocate and author.

Part of a wider project which includes a book to be released next year, The Place That Has Never Been Wounded is a gorgeous instrumental collection, combining elements of ambient music, neo-classical and cinematic composition.

Strings, a Steinway and synths make up this record’s sonic palette. Songs differ slightly in emotion and tempo, and most follow a similar pattern: a slow soundscape in which the volume rises as accelerando piano reaches a cathartic peak.

But there’s not much point in fussing over the tracklist. This is music to heal, or at least shut off to. You don’t need to be a yogi, in an asana on the edge of a cliff with your eyes closed, but showing a little bit of patience and allowing the music to take you wherever it takes you, proves a rewarding experience.

• Out now.