FIONA JOYCE: “This Eden” (River Valley Records)

Joyce’s debut solo album, also released on her own cottage-industry label, was a sombre, stark affair, its often bleak landscape presenting a daunting prospect unlikely to encourage those merely looking for an escape hatch from the vicissitudes of life in modern Ireland. But ultimately it was a rewarding experience for the more adventurous and has found its way into many a home between Baltinglass and Japan.

But when I spotted that her new offering opened with the ominous quote from the Biblical Psalm 23 about “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” my heart plunged as low as, it has been alleged, only a woman’s heart can go.

I need not have worried that sturdy ticker of mine. While not exactly a jolly romp through the joys of life and love amid the solitude of the Wicklow countryside, This Eden turns out to be a far brighter body of work than anticipated, enlivened by the inclusion of more conventional, if no less worthwhile, love songs like the Beatlesque ‘Here I Go Again’, ‘Cry Over You’ and ‘Your Love Is All’, and a production that sets the songs against a less intimidating and more inviting backdrop.

Joyce’s voice is reminiscent of Judy Collins in its clarity and timbre, but expresses a greater emotional depth than either Collins or her numerous Irish sisters seem prepared to deliver, while her combination of singer, guitarist and songwriter in one body puts her in the premiership of Irish writer-performers irrespective of gender. On this evidence, perhaps only Mick Hanly and Jimmy McCarthy of the home-based crew can compare with her maturity of expression and justified air of self-confidence.

With her more wordy songs like ‘Trees’ and ‘This Eden’, the latter adorned by some heavenly heartstring-tugging from the divine Máire Breathnach’s violin, she has learned to be less purgatorial in her approach than heretofore and to combine art, craft, listenability, and, dare one say it, entertainment in equal doses.

‘This Moment’ is a simple, uplifting song, and is here given the sensitve treatment it deserves, borne aloft by Joyce’s own rich harmonies and in a fairer world it would generate cover versions well into the next century, while ‘Private Army’, complete with martial drumming from ex-Clannad drumster Paul Moran, is a merciless put-down of someone who has fallen foul of the narrator. Sooner he/she than me, you can’t help thinking.

Moran again adds his deft touch to ‘Little By Little’, which, in contrast to some of the more folk-based material, ventures into rockier terrain, and ‘Before The Resurrection’ builds smartly from modest beginnings into a truly incendiary epic that, even at over six minutes, ends all too soon.

Gerry Hendricks’ searing electric guitar is put to effective use as a foil to the otherwise mainly acoustic backing, particularly on ‘This Eden’, ‘Before The Resurrection’ and ‘Private Army’, but without turning those songs into mere guitar work-outs with vocal accompaniment. Yet one suspects that a bigger budget might have allowed a wider range of options on the production front, and resulted in an album with more immediate impact and a more contemporary feel.

Nevertheless, this is an admirable addition to the ever-growing catalogue of impressive Irish albums produced without major label involvement and probably sounds all the better for it. File This Eden under “not quite easy listening, but well worth the effort”. Besides, if Fiona Joyce can do it, why can’t you?

• Jackie Hayden