Now, if you were to read the ramblings of milk-sop Irish singer songwriters you’d think that a ballad was some loosely connected stream of consciousness drivel, sung in a half-whine, with a mildly plagiaristic melody. Ex-Jubilee Allstars singer Barry McCormack reminds us (again) that a ballad is in fact a story set to song, and here he sings stories about things like murder (‘Sean Ryan’), tit-for-tat arson attacks (‘Pilot’s Hill’), bicycle law infractions and karmic Gardai retributions (‘Encounters On The Road To Cobh’), and, I think, white collar crime (‘The Man I Would Replace’).
And it’s all got a dark, rugged, beauty to it. The songs are still as raw, poetic and filled with detail as his previous effort Last Night As I Was Wandering, but his voice seems to be getting more cutting, earthy and seasoned, and the arrangements have taken a bound forward, with relatively lush contributions on banjo, mandolin, accordion and guitar from Sick And Indigent Song Club’s Gary Fitzpatrick and Shane McGrath, as well as violin from The Frames’ Colm Mac Con Iomaire, and occasional rousing backing vocals from the lot of them.
So if you like dark ruminations and tales that come from a trady tradition quite at odds with fifteen years of the Celtic Tiger (probably due to make a comeback as the recession deepens) you’ll love Barry McCormack. And if not, well I’m sure someone will kick you in the arse today, because he’s probably one of the best songwriters in the country and eventually people are going to find out.