Rua

Rua are Liz Madden and Gloria Mulhall, classically trained musicians who write and perform a mix of their own original material and versions of Irish folk tunes like ‘She Moved Thro’ The Fair’ and ‘Fill A Rún Óg”.

This, their debut album, has been likened to a hybrid of Enya and Puccini, but it has little of either’s musical inventiveness.

The Enya influence only really surfaces on ‘That Kiss’ but it’s even more reminiscent of Kate Bush, with Madden’s appealingly breathy and soaring voice and some interesting percussive interjections. On ‘Dum Dumda Diddle’ she impresses with her scattish vocal agility on a harmless and humorous romp. But her performances throughout only serve to make one wonder how much better she might be in a less constricting environment.

‘Mist On The Mountain’ is an instrumental with a spoken intro and it communicates an appropriate sense of the forlorn and graphically evokes the horrors of the Famine, and ‘William’s Lament’ shows that Mulhall too can play with the gentle touch, but that’s a rare example of emotion taking first place over technique.

You’ve heard it all before and it’s most likely to appeal to American tourists with fashion problems.