Passenger? Given that she’s been solo for the last four years, the beautiful Lisa Margaret Hannigan has chosen an interesting title for this eagerly-awaited sophomore album. First heard on Damien Rice’s debut O in 2002, the Meath-born singer spent a good half-decade travelling aboard his musical train before having her carriage unceremoniously unhitched one fateful night in Munich in 2007, when Rice fired her from his band (something he has since publicly regretted).
In many ways, Rice did her a major favour. No longer a passenger, Hannigan has been sailing her own ship ever since. Most successfully, too, it must be said. Her 2008 debut album Sea Sew – rehearsed in a freezing barn in the Irish countryside before being recorded in under a fortnight at a friend’s home studio – didn’t sell anything like O, but it still went double platinum, was nominated for the Choice Music Prize at home and the Mercury Prize in the UK, and saw Hannigan play bewitching guest spots everywhere from Later... With Jools Holland to The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

For all the album’s success, however, it was still obviously the work of a woman who’d had her confidence knocked and was somewhat unsure of her talent. It was also surprisingly soft. Given the way things had ended with Rice, nobody would have been surprised if she’d released the equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Raw or Rid Of Me. But then, Hannigan ain’t that type of gal...
“Sea Sew was the most honest record I could make at the time that I made it,” she recently remarked, “but I look at it today, and there’s a certain sense of wanting to appear happy and confident. I wanted it to seem as though nothing bothered me.”
She certainly comes across as confident on Passenger (and why wouldn’t she with a voice so beautiful?), but it’s not an especially happy record. Nor is it a particularly diverse one. For the most part, with just a couple of exceptions (‘Knots’, ‘What’ll I Do’), these songs are melancholic ballads or soft, gentle, folk numbers. Produced by Joe Henry (Elvis Costello, Ani DiFranco, Loudon Wainwright III) and recorded in just a week in Bryn Derwyn studio, Wales, its overall sound is quiet, contemplative and emotional.
It opens with ‘Home’, a mournful ballad apparently inspired by Paul Murray’s bestselling novel Skippy Dies. The great Gavin Glass urgently pounds the ivories, underscored by the breathtaking violin-playing of Lucy Wilkins, and Hannigan sings with real passion and pathos. It’s a good indication of what’s to come.
‘A Sail’ begins with an ominous bass groove, but her soothing vocals ease any menace. ‘Knots’ and ‘What’ll I Do’ are faster and more upbeat, but pretty soon she switches down a gear again with ‘O Sleep’ – a rather gorgeous duet with Ray Lamontagne.

Lyrically Hannigan mostly appears to be addressing relationships, both past and present. On ‘Paper House’, she breathily recalls the idyll days of an old love affair in Ireland (‘Oh we walked in a hollow place back then/ on the edge of Dublin/ the edge of me and you’). The sweetly sung ‘Little Bird’ may well be about the end of her ultimately tumultuous affair with Rice (‘When the time comes, and the rights have been read/ I think of you often, but for once I meant what I said’).
The jaunty title track – featuring a mandolin and some great horns at the end – finds her travelling around America, from city to city, unsure whether or not to contact her lover. The album isn’t without humour, though it’s a rather dark type, expressed on ‘Safe Travels (Don’t Die)’: ‘Don’t swallow bleach out on Sandymount Beach/ I’m not sure I’d reach you in time, my boy/ Please don’t bungee jump or ignore a strange lump/ And a gasoline pump’s not a toy’).
While its mood doesn’t vary very much, Passenger is still quite a beautiful, poetic and evocative record. It doesn’t sound like Lisa Hannigan has yet reached her final musical destination, but she’s obviously enjoying the journey. As will you.