Rising Tide: Collection Old& New

Sean Tyrrell’s fourth solo CD is a curious hybrid – with seven new and ten previously released tracks, it’s neither an entirely new album nor a compilation per se. The new material includes recent compositions by Eamon Friel (the sweetly romantic ‘Such A Night Of Stars’) and by Tyrrell in collaboration with Frank Greally (‘Marian’s Song’, in a mesmerising arrangement dominated by saxophone and cello) as well as standards ‘Side By Side’ and ‘South Of The Border’, Tyrrell’s musical setting of the Yeats poem ‘Cap And Bells’, and two other songs featuring new melodies for old words: ‘The Man For Galway’ and ‘The Quaker’, a comic ballad with a twist at the end. Alongside these are equally fine songs drawn from all three of Tyrrell’s earlier recordings. One for longtime fans and new converts alike.