Ronan Tynan: "My Life Belongs To You" (RTECD)
This album has a collection of songs that is bound to bring a warm glow to the CD machines of countless thousands of people. How can you lose with pop classics such as You'll Never Walk Alone, La Vie En Rose, If I Loved You, Because and I'll Walk With God? Indeed three-quarters of the tracks, once winners for Mario Lanza, are given rich and resonant arrangements here by Frank McNamara Sadly, Ronan Tynan brings little more than his technical expertise and palpable enthusiasm to bear on most of these texts; Shay Healy's Sail Away is the only surprise. Perhaps the singer would have been better served if he'd recorded more songs that didn't lie under the large shadow of Mario Lanza. Joe Jackson
Dr Millar: "The Deal" (Self-Possessed Records)
Some might find the Doctor's new deal a little raw for comfort, and the opening lines of Dying For The Light - "life is a prison/ And death is the door" - may seem a foreboding welcome to the world of Sean Millar. If you can handle the strong medicine, however, you'll find that, beneath the cold, broken surface of songs like Finally OK and Billy Meany, beats a compassionate heart and a sympathetic soul. Millar's tales of drinking, cursing, loving and cheating are brutally honest vignettes of Irish low-life, sung in a smoky, sardonic rasp. Donna Quixote hits the mark with its echoes of Leonard Cohen, and there's a rootsy sense of unease in songs like Dead Man's Hand and The Little Cross. This album is only available by mail-order, so send your 15 quid to Self-Possessed Records, P.O. Box 5442, Dublin 4, or send an email to drmillar@dmcwebs.com. Kevin Courtney
Various Artists: "Forgotten Angels" (Lunar Records)
Nice cause, shame about the music. This charity CD has been put together in aid of Temple Street Children's Hospital; 19 of Ireland's top contemporary artists have dug into their back catalogues and donated a song to this much-needed fund-raiser. The result is a compendium of Irish rock, pop, trad and MOR which, unfortunately, leans more towards the latter. The CD takes off spectacularly with U2's If God Would Send His Angels, and almost stays up through Van Morrison's Days Like This and Aslan's Crazy World, but soon the album dips into soft, slushy tunes by Mary Black, The Corrs, Brian Kennedy, Clannad and Chris De Burgh. Just grit your teeth, fork out the 15 quid, and think of the sick children whose lives depend on Temple Street Children's Hospital. Kevin Courtney
