It s been four years since the last Siniad O Connor album. By any standards, even for a major artist, that s a long time, inevitably heightening speculation about where Siniad s muse was likely to take her.
If the wait was sometimes an anxious one, concerned fans needn t have worried. Faith And Courage is Siniad O Connor s most assured and compelling work to date. Combining the most striking qualities of The Lion And The Cobra, I Do Not Want What I Haven t Got and Universal Mother, it is brilliantly and beautifully diverse. But it is also strong and coherent the work of a mature artist who has found her voice and is using it masterfully.
Lyrically, this is Siniad s finest hour: her honesty is legendary and it s in evidence throughout Faith And Courage but here there is a heightened eloquence that gives the songs a special poetic resonance. And musically it s a wonderful pot-pourri of styles and influences, contemporary, Caribbean and Irish.
There s a strong reggae feel to much of the album and particularly on the tracks produced by dubmeister Adrian Sherwood. But this rhythmic pulse is melded with a traditional Irish groove evident in both the finely-tuned melodic colourings of Kieran Kiely s whistle, and through Siniad s own soulful vocal performances.
Faith And Courage is also great pop music. The single No Man s Woman , produced by Scott Cutler and Anne Preven, offered a tasty appetiser in this respect but The State I m In , written by Cutler and Preven, is even more triumphantly radio-friendly. And then there s three (count em) ballads which have potential smash hit written all over them the towering, epic and deeply soulful Jealous , a collaboration with ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart that is simultaneously withering and affectionate; the pulsating Till I Whisper U Something , also co-written with Stewart, which is powerfully pointed and seductive; and, most reminiscent of Nothing Compares , the epic Hold Back The Night , a hugely desolate song by Robert Hodgens that Siniad makes completely and unmistakably her own.
Underlying the album, and its interwoven themes of love, faith and courage, is a deep sense of hurt. It s there in Jealous , in which Siniad moves heartbreakingly from accusation to confession, from bass to falsetto. You re jealous, she charges, You just can t stand to see me get along without you. And then in one of the album s most achingly moving shifts, she exposes her own feelings of vulnerability and pain: I would have stayed if you d wanted/would have been willing/But you said I treat you so badly/Can t be forgiven and then you know I would have done anything to make it through with you. Jealous is soul music of the highest order.
That same sense of vulnerability is there in Hold Back The Night , in If U Ever and in Emma s Song . But there s a strong sense of defiance too, most notably in No Man s Woman and What Doesn t Belong To Me , that reflects the spirit of a woman who s been through hell and who has now come driving back.
And finally there is both humour and contentment. Daddy I m Fine is a smart, funny and sexy autobiographical account of Siniad s own rise to stardom that s brilliantly addictive in its hot, pop dynamics. Sorry to be disappointing/Wasn t born for no marrying/Wanna make my own living singing/Strong independent pagan woman, Siniad sings, and you get the feeling that her father isn t the only man the song is addressed to.
And then there s The Healing Room , the opening track, on which she samples her children s laughter with impish effect. A reggae spiritual, it has a marvellous child-like playfulness that is both calm and calming.
Redemption songs: while Faith And Courage takes us, Blood On The Tracks-like, on a journey to the heart of darkness it does not leave us marooned upriver, desolate and afeared. You know, at the end of it at the End Of The Affair, so to speak just how cold and cruel a place the world can be. But you are also made to feel, and that is the operative word, how greatly resilient the human spirit is, and how love can and, if you let it, does prevail.
Faith And Courage is one of the great records. Full of wonderful vocal performances, for Siniad O Connor, soul singer, it is a resounding personal triumph.