Wonder Waltz IML**

Three and a half decades after their 1975 debut, and seven years on from their break up, De Danann are back, minus their flamboyant fiddler Frankie Gavin. Founding members Alec Finn and Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh are joined by one of De Danann's singers, Eleanor Shanley, for a turn around the room. Wonder Waltz is a competent but all too often insipid collection of tunes whose arrangements rarely test the musicians' mettle. It's the song choices, though, that drag this puzzlingly titled collection into the mire. Kicking off with an execrable paean to Ireland, written by Johnny Duhan, Shanley's plaintive Oh Sacred Ireland/Facing Americahungers for an audience more acquainted with mail boats than budget airlines. Its grating romanticisation of home is stultifying. Shanley jettisons the pent-up anger and frustration of Paul Brady's Hard Station, bathing it in yet more plaintive tones. A metaphor for these recessionary times? Or simply a pedestrian attempt to recapture old glories? See dedanann.info