Dan Milner/Various Artists: Irish Ballads & Songs of the Sea (Folk-Legacy Records, Inc) This very fine, entertaining album of traditional sea ballads and shanties gives the lie to the mythical preponderance of English sea songs, given the Famine ships and Irish sea-labourers who built and populated so much of the Americas. Sung doughtily by Dan Milner with the strong musical backing of Louis Killen's mournsome, rhythmic concertina and Mick Moloney's verbose strings, some songs are political (The Harp with- out the Crown) or defiantly nostalgic, while most are ragged tales of shanghais, exploitation and rough life on the high-seas packet ships - although rarely without a morale-boosting tragi-comic touch. And Milner has done his research, too, throwing a very interesting window on to a grubby past which had little respect indeed for the working man.
Mic Moroney
Galldubh: Two Little Ducks (Eerie Hour/Independent)
Flailing out, it seems, at a Riverdance audience, with an arrangement template deriving from late Planxty or even over-ripe Horslips, this thundery rock-fusion outfit is at its most effective when the melodic lines are handled by the very real dexterity of Zoe Conway's buoyant fiddle flights. Negotiating the choppy waters of the rhythm section, piper Eamonn Galldubh chimes in betimes on the bag and sticks, or duets some rotating phrases with Eamonn de Barra on low whistles. Fionan de Barra brings some interesting enthusiasm to his acoustic guitar, while ) Ruairi spaces out with Starsky'n'Hutch-era rhythm guitar or rasping guitar solos. It's all excitement without much discipline or direction; good strutting crack but total musical chaos.
Mic Moroney