Hey-ho Believe, Ride On Records, **

His eight-year sabbatical from album recording may have sharpened Jimmy MacCarthy’s appetite for performance, but his new studio outing reveals a man most at ease sticking to the road well travelled. His mastery of the obtuse lyric is evident in this oddly beatific collection.

Dónal Lunny's production is the French polish smoothed over the 11 songs, and, while the amalgam of cruising guitar lines and unhurried percussion can be soothing (particularly on the philosophical Tears to Picardy), the recurrent celestial references (doves, golden dunes, tongues of fire, alchemists) eventually wear exceedingly thin. What may have started out as lofty themes disintegrate into clunky expressions of disenchantment and disgust at how our world has gone to hell in a handbasket.

A slew of sleevenote typos adds to the disappointment. See jimmymaccarthy.net