Fifteen years after releasing Interview, his debut album, it’s safe to say that Brian Deady has had his share of career heartbreak. The Corkman has come tantalisingly close to mainstream success more than once, most notably when the major-label re-release of Non-Fiction, his 2015 album, failed to have the international commercial impact that was hoped for.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without the constraints and pressures of a label dictating his next move, Deady has allowed his creative divining rod to lead him to unexpected places, including to Spain, where he has lived for several years, or to Memphis, to record Yellow Creek, his 2020 album. When that release and subsequent tour were waylaid by Covid, his LP The Healing, from the following year, plundered a new sound for the Skibbereen native, edging away from his soul and R’n’B roots into a more electronic-oriented space.
Deady now returns with a compact sixth studio album that picks up that electronic thread across seven tracks, but this time with a healthy helping of new-wave rock in the mix. De Universe sets a clattering guitar sound against a background of pinging synthesisers; the lyrics of Punch, a ragged, shoulder-shimmying number, bounce between cynicism and playfulness; while The Fear’s giddy pace gleefully volleys synth-pop against art rock. The pared-back balladry of Nightingale provides a necessary breather, although it lacks the potency of the other tracks.
Still, Deady manages to pull listeners back on course with the one-two of Girl in the Nirvana T-shirt, a song inspired by a teenage encounter during a difficult-yet-liberating period of his life, and the funky, soul-balming strut of the album’s closing track, Beginning, on which he sagely croons how “you can’t please ’em all.”
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Throughout it all, Deady’s voice remains a showstopping force, both textured and commanding, pliable yet utterly dependable. With every album, it seems that the Corkman inches closer to the sound that feels most true to himself. Whatever genre he lands on, it’s both a pleasure and a thrill to tag along for the ride.
