This South Dublin singer-songwriter has been tirelessly pounding the boards, both at home and abroad, over the last few years. While he’s undoubtedly a powerhouse live performer, capable of summoning up the kind of fiery passion reminiscent of Springsteen, Van Morrison or The Waterboys, Lynch is no mean songwriter either, as this follow-up to his debut, A Whisper In A Riot confirms.
He treats the studio pretty much the same way that he approaches his gigs: that is, he holds almost nothing back and, with his switch-blade voice and crack band, manages to turn almost every number into an exhilarating tour-de-force. The epic opener, ‘It’s ‘Coming Down’ is the kind of bar-band rock that the likes of The Hold Steady and The Gaslight Anthem have been excelling at recently. And ‘Winners’ combines smouldering, soulful atmospherics with yearning lyrics and a nod towards Springsteen’s ‘Jungleland’ (“And the poets, no, they can’t believe their luck”). He changes tack slightly, travelling down a country road, on the foot-stomping ‘If I Was In Your Shoes’, which is not a million miles away from Steve Earle’s cow-punk classic ‘Copperhead Road’, while Dylanesque acoustic folk informs the more gently-paced numbers such as ‘Hold Your Fire’ and ‘Kiss My Blues’. The spirit of Neil Young (‘Words’) is all over ‘Suits You’ while ‘Quicksand’, a recent single, starts out with just piano and voice but builds into a riotous show-stopping rocker.
Catch him live if you can. This will certainly whet your appetite.