Christy Moore: Traveller (Columbia)Christy Moore returns, in all his glory, as a post-modern folkie! You bet. Songs like Raggle Taggle Gypsy and Rocky Road, though dressed in contemporary dance rhythms, and blessed with new words and music by Moore, still remain rooted in the Irish soil. And psyche. Better still, The Siren's Voice savages the racism that now, sadly, is a defining feature of modern Ireland. But best of all are soul-naked compositions like the terrifyingly lonely Lovely Young One and Last Cold Kiss, a song as sacred as the final kiss one would place on the corpse of a loved one. Then again, that's what this album is. Christy dedicates it to "the memory of my father, Andy Moore". There could be no finer testimony in music.
Joe Jackson