Album Review: Amble, Reverie

There’s considerable virtue in being uncomplicated. Just ask Amble’s Oisín McCaffrey.

“People crave going to see someone who’s just going to go up and sing a song with meaning behind it,” he told us in October last year. “It’s almost as if the more complex the world becomes, the more you need a simple song.”

It’s a paradox. For many, life does seem louder, weirder and more fragmented than ever. And more frightening too. Who among us can predict with any degree of confidence what the lie of the land is likely to be socially, politically or in relation to the climate crisis – the threat from which has been greatly exacerbated by the return of Donald Trump to the White House – in even five years’ time?

This is the deeply disquieting backdrop against which three quintessentially Irish lads, originally armed only with acoustic guitars, a bouzouki, and their voices, attracted in excess of 100 million streams and sold out three nights at 3Olympia Theatre, and a 3Arena show, as well as a litany of gigs everywhere from Melbourne to Denver – all before releasing an album.

Amble at He For She: An Evening For Equality, Brigid 2025 at Dreamland Ballroom. Photo Credit Jason Doherty.

That full-length opus is here at last. Boasting 14 tracks in all, it captures the trio – McCaffrey, Ross McNerney and singer Robbie Cunningham – just as they are. Recorded live, for the most part, Reverie shows that simple doesn’t have to be simplistic.

Warm, organic and intimate, the album is stripped back but not undercooked – rather, it’s a quietly confident effort that invites you gently in, rather than shouting to be noticed. There are elements here of Planxty, in the subtle filigree coilings of the acoustic instruments, but also hints of Guy Clark in the narrative lyrics and the country-influenced vocal tone.

There’s lots to relish: the golden-hued nostalgia of ‘Schoolyard Days’ and ‘Treehouse Wings’, which look back at childhood, all the better to understand the present; the delicate, naturalistic yearning for a long-gone love of ‘Lonely Island’ with its hypnotic bouzouki riff –“I am lost,” the narrator reflects, “You were one of a kind”; and the lovestruck softness of ‘Marlay Park’ and ‘Mary’s Pub’, which paint fleeting Dublin romances in careful, telling detail.

Often, there is an undercurrent of parting, and of loss, that seems impossible to escape. “Winter consumes this place,” Cunningham sings in ’Swan Song’. “Gentle remains its pace / And we carry on/ Oblivious to our Swan Song.”

There is no intention here to reinvent the wheel. Fans will be familiar with many of Reverie’s 14 tracks. but gathering them together on an album offers a different dimension. You hear the hard-won wisdom of the lyrics, the musical dexterity and the appeal of Robbie Cunningham’s care-worn voice in a fresh light.

It’s just the start of an adventure that promises to be far bigger and more far-reaching than anyone could possibly have predicted.

8/10

Out now