CHRISTMAS is the time of year when one expects to hear Phil Callery in full, Holly and Ivy flight with his other ensemble, The Voice Squad.
But the absence of fiddler Colm McCaughey, amid the seasonal gaiety, did present him and daughters Sarah and Rosa with a considerable challenge that dampened their normally wonderful Sinead O'Connor's My Love.
Rising out of that, though, on the Sam Henry sourced Sweet Bann Water, they were in terrific voice and harmonies in the company of Niall O Callanain's picked bazouki. Instrumental breaks with Callery on fiddle were sensitively wrought into dance tempos and built on impressively by Kevin Murphy's cello.
It was this instrument, indeed, that worked up to an almost didgeridoo, pulsed choppiness on Fair Rosa, and gives the band its dark, string quartet, serious beauty. Bazouki effects were applied delicately and to great effect on The Bonny Blue eyed Lassie, but it was the Loreena McKennit style setting of W.B. Yeats's To the Waters and the Wild that showed the band's strength of voice and arrangement experience to full advantage.
