Come Alive

This is Tuam man Noelie McDonnell’s third LP. Recorded in Texas and Toronto, it arrives a mere 12 months since his last album Nearly Four topped the iTunes folk charts here.
McDonnell sticks rigorously to the standard contemporary folk-rock blueprint. His warm, slightly smokey, voice won’t alarm Paddy Casey fans, and it works best on tracks like ‘Brother’s Keeper’, ‘It Won’t Hurt’ and ‘Never Knew You’. There’s an infectious quality to the excellent ‘Knowing’ too.
On the downside, McDonnell’s band perform their duties as if the nurse has just been around with their medication, and while there’s nothing at all offensive about this album, neither does it raise itself above the ordinary.