Lisa Lambe: Juniper – Easy listening, but in a very good way

She made her name as a (primarily stage) actress before turning her hand to music as a member of Celtic Woman. As she proved with her 2015 solo debut Hiding Away, however, Lisa Lambe is more than capable of making it as a musician. If that Nashville-recorded, country-hued album suggested that the Dublin-born singer's light may have been hidden under a bushel with Celtic Woman, her second record confirms it.

Lambe's beautiful voice, which has earned comparisons to Natalie Merchant and Alison Krauss, is a balm on songs such as the laidback rollick of Hunter's Moon and the softly plucked North Star Rise.

Elsewhere, Burning Love and Someone Like You (neither of them resembling their more famous namesakes) veer towards a Laurel Canyon sound; the former evokes shades of The Mamas and the Papas, while the latter’s wistful folk-pop treads just the right side of schmoozy MOR.

The stark Lighthouse leans on piano for an evocative, congenial love song that displays the talents and musicianship of Lambe’s fine band. Those tenderly crafted tracks make others, such as the folky Holding Back the Tide and Vision in Grey, sound a little ordinary by comparison.

Despite that inconsistency, this “love song to nature” – recorded live in one room and under the guidance of producer Karl Odlum – is easy listening, in the best sense of that phrase.

[ lisalambe.ie  ]