Other Voices – Songs From A Room

Live albums are often extremely questionable entities unless you were at the concert in question: live compilations even moreso, usually only worthy of investment if the proceeds benefit a worthwhile charity. Other Voices is different though, for a number of reasons.

Obviously, it’s the album of the TV show, which is for the most part absolutely brilliant, where the crème de la crème of the Irish music community, along with a few adopted extras, decamped to St James’ Church, Dingle, for a week of gigs. Like the television series, the emphasis is placed squarely on the songs themselves, which are performed acoustically. Secondly, the sound quality is pin-droppingly perfect: were it not for the applause at the end of each song, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a studio album.

That said, if you’re not a fan of singer-songwriters, this will drive you demented, and one or two of the tracks are a wee bit earnest even for yours truly. But highlights from the 19 songs are plentiful.

A surprisingly gravel-voiced Josh Ritter delivers the gorgeous ‘Snow Is Gone’, growling “I’d rather be the one who loves/Than to be loved and never even know”. A resurgent Paddy Casey shows off his incredibly emotive vocal chords on the restrained ‘Anyone Who’s Yet To Come’. Mark Geary plucks his way though the lovely ‘Volunteer’, while Ger Wolfe’s ‘Standing In Doorways’ and Barry McCormack’s ‘On A May Morning’ trace a line right back to Planxty.

Other standouts include Nina Hynes’ brilliant ‘Universal’; former Prayer Boat frontman Emmet Tinley’s hair-raisingly beautiful ‘Closer To Happy’; Damien Dempsey’s anti-drugs epic, ‘Party On’; and The Frames’ magnificent ‘Star Star’, which mutates briefly into a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory before morphing again into dEus’ majestic ‘Hotelounge’.

It’s all very restrained, gentle and acoustic, so Linkin Park fans should probably give it a miss, but for a snapshot of some of the finest songwriters and songs this country has ever fostered, Other Voices is hard to beat.