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There’s a bit of the Jimmy Page about Martin Hayes. When he’s in full flight onstage and the curls are flailing more wildly than his bow it’s easy to see how he could be the closest thing traditional music has to a rock god. For all that, ‘The Clare Reel’ opens this collection in a subdued, almost sombre fashion, the pace lifting only slightly on the following track before ‘The Dear Irish Boy’ takes it right down. In fact the imagined flamboyance never materialises. Dennis Cahill’s guitar playing is the antithesis of the percussive thudding that plagues many a recording. He wears his virtuosity lightly, matching delicate pizzicato picking against Hayes’ long fluid strokes and never feeling the urge to force the underlying jazz inflections anywhere near the surface.
His structured almost trancelike playing allows the fiddle to float on top like an ice dancer. On the slow airs the backing all but evaporates leaving only the slightly gypsyesque essence of the fiddle.
As with their live appearances, the performances captured on this record are all about the lithe interplay between the two musicians. They keep it simple – there are overdubs but not too many nor too obvious. Although the mood doesn’t change too dramatically over the course of the fifty odd minutes there is no danger that your attention might drift as delicacy is swapped for drama with powerful effect. It’s been a decade since their last studio album – but given that this is nearly flawless I’d say it has been well worth the wait.
Key Track: "Dear Irish Boy'