With Clannad’s activities in some kind of limbo, our focus in recent times has happily turned to Moya Brennan’s solo work on which she consistently engineered a happy marriage of her Celtic and Christian roots and the soundscaping we had become accustomed to from her Clannad days. But whereas previous solo albums had real fire and zest, the 12 tracks on Signature are impeccably played, crafted and sung, and it’s more likely to reveal its worth on repeat visits than hit you over the head on first hearing.
On ‘Black Night’ she sounds like her county colleague Marian Bradfield, and reveals her mystic side on ‘Hear My Prayer’ with its plea to “bring me through the darkness”. There’s more than a hint of Clannad on ‘Never Far Away’ and the hypnotic pulsing rhythms on ‘Many Faces’ will set hearts and toes beating. ‘No One Talks’ is pleasant, but no more than that, but ‘Purple Haze’ (not the Jimi Hendrix song) is vintage Brennan on which Eamon Galldubh gives good uilleann pipe, as he does on ‘Tapestry’.
Throughout Signature Brennan’s spiritual leanings are less obvious. Maybe she’s come to realise that the devil really does have all the best tunes, because while this album is worth it for her voice alone, it feels like she’s marking time waiting for something more momentous to happen.