Dave Couse’s place in the pantheon of great Irish songwriters is assured. During his tenure with A House he was responsible for some of the best home-grown tunes ever written, not least ‘Endless Art’.
His first solo album in five years finds him in a mellow, introspective mood blending classical song structures with pop, post-rock and even doo-wap at one point (‘All Tomorrows’). Mostly piano based, the songs range from the poignant, elegiac beauty of ‘What Will Become Of Us’ and ‘Don’t Say A Word’ to the melodically quirky ‘Good Friday’, which features another singularly unique Irish voice in Cathal Coughlan.
It’s not always an easy ride lyrically and some will doubtless find it more than a tad gloomy; ‘All Tomorrows’, one of the few tracks that might win radio play is heartbreakingly pessimistic, while a somewhat troubled soul appears on the closing track ‘Time’ (“Time is a brutal thing…time will take us…time will break us.”)
That said, this is a lush, beautiful sounding album in a sonic sense, with mastering by the legendary Bob Ludwig.