Tori Amos
MIDWINTER GRACES
10/10
On Midwinter Graces, Amos is back. Tori Amos is back! Another Christmas album, what’s that I hear you say? Yes I understand that the thought can be received with more than a bit of caution. Not another version of tinsel and sentimentality? Not another holiday season sell out? Well not to worry! How wrong can you be!
First, while listening to Tori Amos’ Midwinter Graces I am swelling up with contentment, like I have an old friend back….Tori is home with her trademark passionate piano playing, poetic lyrics and expressive vocals.
This is Amos’ best work in years. It’s a full 12 tracks long of perfect length and a production perfection album that is reminiscent of the Tori we all fell in love with in the 90’s. My favourite track has to be ‘Holy Ivy and Rose’ which also includes guest vocals from Amos’s daughter- and it’s such an added bonus. Midwinter Graces also contains five originals and some reworked masters.
In typical Amos fashion, carols’ histories have been vastly researched and a song combining “What Child Is This?” and “The First Noel” (as it was spelled originally) was born. This song also features Amos’ first use of the harpsichord in quite some time, and fans should rejoice over that it even has sleigh bells.
Oh I cannot contain my excitement. It’s December, go and feel the Christmas spirit and buy this album!
Eleanor McEvoy
SINGLED OUT- Review
7/10
Stand out tracks- Wrong So Wrong &
Make mine a small one.
Eleanor McEvoy’s career has had many highlights. From the best selling Irish Album- ‘A Woman’s Heart’ that secured her place in Irish music history to the faithful night in the Baggot inn in Dublin where Tom Zutaut A & R from Geffen Records, who had previously signed Guns & Roses, Motley Crew, and Edie Brickell, offered McEvoy a worldwide recording deal after watching her perform.
Her vast talent has allowed her to work and play with the likes of Paul Brady, Midge Ure and Richard Thompson and she has had her song covered by Emmylou Harris, Sonja Kristina, Mary Black and Phil Coulter.
Impressive? Yes.
Eleanor’s music has appeared in the US Top 10 Billboard Charts (‘Precious little’) and US television network ‘ABC’s popular series Clueless’ (‘A Glass Unkissed’), McEvoy also sang Bill Whelan’s song ‘The Seabird’ in Some Mother’s Son starring Helen Mirren, written by Jim Sheridan and Terry George. Her song ‘Whisper a Prayer to the Moon’ features in ‘The Nephew’ starring Pierce Brosnan. The cult HBO series ‘Six Feet Under’ featured the song ‘All I Have’ written by Caroline Lavelle and McEvoy
More impressive yes? Yes.
New album Singled OUT ,should have a dedicated place on everyone’s Cd collection.
If your into Folk- Blues- Rock- Roots- and pure home grown raw talent, then McEvoy’s latest album is telling of her independent journey from major label artist to indie minded Goddess of her craft. A rather impressive collection from the past decade of her independently released albums and tunes- makes up McEvoy’s current musical offering- SINGLED OUT. Some have said that Singled Out is it a testament to her consistency and quality control. And they are not far off.
I would even be inclined to say that the album has altered my views on this artist to one of considerable admiration and appreciation and indeed enlightenment! (I always had her pigeon marked along side Mary Black and Sharon Shannon- oh how ‘wrong so wrong’ I was….like the pun there) If you have any preconceived notions of what Eleanor McEvoy’s music is about – it’s definitely not any of the folksy groups from A Woman’s Heart era…. It’s something uniquely different and refreshing. Lush vocals sang in that rhetoric that McEvoy masters, this album will surely surprise and impress.
Go on go buy a copy. I got mine upstairs in Eason’s.
