Customer Reviews

Sean-Nos Nua

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Sine`ad O'Connor has found a perfect vehicle for her great talent. This is a collection of 13 cuts,most of them short,ballad like all of them traditionaly Irish. Th opening song is a hook, Peggy Gordon, a marvelously textured song of love{and the second longest on this album]. Others include LORD Franklin,the Stirring PAddy's lament, a haunting story of a conscript in the American civil war,the Gaelic Baidin Fheilimi,the longest song on this relese,Lord Baker is sung with Christy Moore,and it works very well.A great compilation of song,the outside of the Cd comes with a sticker from ms. O'connor" saying that this was the record she waited her whole life to make, and it sounds it. With the crystalline voice designed to break your heart, matched with the best arraingements,simple and elegant of her career, Sinead o'Connor has mad her finest recording to date. This is a near perfect album,and I highly recommend it .

I have to confess that I am not the biggest Sinead O'Connor fan. I liked a few songs here and there in the past ten years but I wasn't really into her music as some of the reviewers here are. I was more indifferent to her music and just annoyed with her antics that I have seen on television. It wasn't until I heard Sinead's vocals on Conjure One's "Tears From the Moon" that made me re-think of her music. Her contribution on Rhys Fulber's new project just blew me away. Definitely one of the best tracks I have heard her sing on. I loved her thick Irish accent on the song. Plus a couple of my posting buddies over at MSN.com has raved about Sinead's new album of cover songs. I have heard nothing but good things about "Sean-Nos Nua". According to my friends, this album is all cover songs of traditional Irish songs. I love Irish music so that was a big plus for me to buy this album. I finally got around to buying "Sean-Nos Nua". I was definitely not disappointed in this album. Sinead's vocals were perfect for these songs. Doing an entire album of traditional Irish music was a brilliant idea on Sinead's part. Anyone wanting more poppier music from her should open their minds more, that or just should not buy this album if they want her to remain making pop music. I enjoy Irish music myself but I guess if people don't enjoy it and want Sinead to put herself in a rut by making the same ol' song over and over, so be it. I enjoy diversity. "Sean-Nos Nua" is a beautiful album. I absolutely loved "Peggy Gordon", "Molly Malone", and "Paddy's Lament" in particular. This entire album is a complete masterpiece. Fans of celtic music definitely would love "Sean-Nos Nua" as well as most Sinead fans. I may just have to check out her other albums in the near future. This woman is truly a talented and highly overlooked artist.

I've hoped Sinead would record an entire CD in the Irish language ever since I heard her do one such song in concert several years ago. This new album is very strong, but I wish there were more than two songs sung in the Erse. The liner notes include Sinead's introduction to each song and it's interesting to learn why she was drawn to them. She doesn't come right out and define what "Sean-Nos Nua" means, but I gather it roughly translates to "songs done in the old style." It is a nice collection and her voice is as expressive as ever. The best moments for me are her duet with Christy Moore on "Lord Baker" and her version of the anti-war song "Paddy's Lament." A surprising inclusion is "Molly Malone," which I'm used to hearing as a sprightly song, rather than as the dirge it really is, as Sinead notes. I'm hoping this CD will be a success that will lead to another.

one of the millions of things i love about sinead o'connor is her uncanny ability to surprise me (and everyone else, i suppose). just when you thought you've nailed her down and defined her, or she's run out of tricks to pull, she comes out with even more surprises. and these surprises never fail to, well, surprise and delight.

for my birthday, i asked my sister to buy me sean-nos nua in japan (i wanted to have the release with bonus tracks). it was about double the price. but it was okay because after i heard the 2 bonus tracks (spanish lady & marble halls), i thought that they were well worth the extra money.

i think i better veer away from talking about each track in detail. rather, i would talk about how wonderful the album is, as a whole.

in this album, i noticed that even after more than a decade, sinead hasn't lost her passionate, fiery, and mournful voice. although, there are lots of times that she seems to be just whispering and singing a lullaby to a sleeping baby, you could almost always hear that hint of contained anger (not hatred)--like an beautiful (in a morbid way) scar borne of a terrible wound. and somehow these whispers crush your heart. it's like you just want her scream her lungs out. yes, sometimes, she screams and make you feel "normal" again. but sometimes, she doesn't.

i must admit that the first time i listened to the album, i got a little distracted. well, when sinead sings a song, you tend to forget everything else--who wrote the song, where it came from, etc--she just transport you to a completely different reality where even "drifting leaves" seem significant and filled with passion. so, i forgot that the songs in sean-nos nua are actually traditional celtic songs. and i got a little distracted when the songs just end "abruptly". i had to remind myself that these are traditional songs. and as such, they are very simple in measure and melody. the lines and the tunes are mostly repetitive. mostly, they lack the codas, refrains, or even chorus to give you that roller-coaster ride while listening to them, or even prepare you for the end. they just tell stories that are important and characteristic of a certain group of people, no matter how trivial or naive these stories may seem to be.

we know very well that sinead's voice has got to be the most haunting singing voice ever. now imagine that voice singing (or, weeping, or, lamenting... whichever word you want to use) very very old songs that are just as ghostly. and what do you get? a wonderful album that creeps under your skin, posseses your soul, breaks your heart, wets your eyes, and makes you think how lucky you are to have come across this album which never happened before, and will never happen again.

yes, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. but it's esoteric. it's not for the faint of heart.

Sinead O'Connor's latest music offering is nothing short of remarkable! I loved this CD! From the first to the last song, Sean-Nos Nua sets out to prove how versatile and beautiful her voice truly is.

The song "Peggy Gordon" is so strikingly beautiful in its simplicity. On the catchy tune, "Her Mantle So Green," I feel as though I'm rollicking over green hills in the countryside.

"Lord Franklin" is a rich and haunting song with a melody that lingers long after the song is over. "Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile" stirs the soul, grabs your attention and doesn't let go. This is my favorite tune on the CD. "Paddy's Lament" runs the gamut with emotion. From mournful whispering to soaring vocals, Sinead pours all of her heart and soul into this song.

The "Lord Baker" duet with Christy Moore is quite a treat. Their voices compliment one another and blend very well. For me, this song was story-telling at its best. "I'll Tell Me Ma" is a frisky, toe-tapping song that makes you want to get up out of your chair. My fervent hope is that this won't be Sinead's last musical detour from the rock/pop genre.

Sinead O'Connor's first couple of albums were magnificent ground-breaking stuff which still sound great today. After that, her successes were more sporadic as she searched for a focus for her vocal talent and identity, often sounding hesitant and constrained. This is her best album in many years, singing with renewed confidence on a collection of purely traditional Irish songs that she clearly loves, such as Peggy Gordon, Lord Franklin, The Moorlough Shore and The Parting Glass, with a sympathetic cluster of excellent musicians ranging from Donal Lunny and Sharon Shannon to the dub On-U Sounds of Skip MacDonald (Little Axe) and Adrian Sherwood
(review originally filed July 2003)

Sinead quotes that shes been dying to make this album all her life. I feel as if Ive been waiting to hear this album all my life.
A spiritually inspiring piece of work, sometimes upliftingly so, sometimes comfortingly so. Hauntingly beautiful with tracks like Peggy Gordon (for anyone who has experienced the feeling of complete and utter love) and the awesome 'Lord Baker'.
'Oró Sé Do Bheatha Baile rocks. All power to those women out there celebrating their return from invading forces. And how could you not have a fondness for Ill Tell Me Ma!
This album is full of balmy rhythms to rock you along gently, particularly so in Her Mantle So Green which subtly leads you to the cruelly ironic ending of this tale.
Love and romance weaves in and out with tracks like Lord Franklin, a beautiful song of unaccepted loss, The Moorlough Shore and My Lagan Love'.
There are tracks on this album that are obviously for and on behalf of Irelands history, such as Paddys Lament and Báidin Fheilimi as well as for Irish sociability, as in The Parting Glass.
Sineads vocals are wonderful and at so many times cutting so cleanly through the air, mind and atmosphere. The Singing Bird does this so surely.
Even Molly Malone was good. I have to admit that I was expecting to hear another rendition not dissimilar to the kind of thing you hear in the local bar before closing, but was pleasantly surprised to hear instead a more sincere version.
I really enjoyed and appreciated the sleeve notes. I am not Irish and am unfamiliar with the traditional songs of this land, so a write up for each song was very useful and elucidating.
I love this album. I can not stop playing it.

Was a time when the mere utterance of Sinead O'Connor's name was enough, in certain circles, to warrant at least a sternly-raised gray eyebrow, if not a good old-fashioned exorcism, pointed in the direction of the transgressor. She was bald, outspoken and defiant. I remember well, and perhaps you do, too, her shredding of a photograph of the Pope following a performance on Saturday Night Live; her refusal to perform following the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner at her concerts; and her vocal support of the IRA and its actions in Ireland. Of course, this was not exactly the way to go about winning the hearts of the Buick-driving set, and she drew the ire of everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Madison Square Garden crowd at Bob Dylan's 50th birthday concert (the latter of which she reacted to by breaking into an angry and impromptu version of Bob Marley's "War" that still gives me chills). Lost in all of this, a least to a lot of people, was the fact that she was an amazing talent who happened to create two of the more outstanding albums of the late 80's and early `90's-1987's The Lion and the Cobra and 1990's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. These albums were filled with well written, politically-charged songs like "Jerusalem," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and "Black Boys on Mopeds." Her reputation, however, had been made for most by her outspoken actions.
Well, times change. People change. The Sinead O'Connor of the last few years has been a kindler, gentler Sinead. She's gotten married, had two children and more or less mellowed out. She's also made her own brand of peace with the Catholic church, which includes being ordained a priest by a sect that has been condemned by the Vatican for its actions. The material on her last three albums, meanwhile, has reflected this change, with a marked shift inward. On her latest release, Sean-Nos Nua, O'Connor continues this trend by collecting thirteen traditional Irish folk songs, many of which she grew up singing in Dublin.
The title of the album is an apt one: Sean-Nos is an old style of Irish singing, while Nua simply means "new." The marriage of new forms and old styles is one that runs the course of the album, an attempt on O'Connor's part to pay homage to these songs she's long loved at the same time that she puts a new face on them. O'Connor and her producers assembled a stellar line-up of traditional Irish folk musicians including Donal Lunny, Sharon Shannon and legendary vocalist Christy Moore, who joins O'Connor for a pleasant enough version (albeit an overly long one) of "Lord Baker." At the same time, however, the tunes here have also been "modernized" a bit: some vocal echo here, a computer-enhanced beat there. It's nothing drastic, but it won't be mistaken for the Chieftains. Purists of Irish music, then, may have issues with some of the production values, but O'Connor's obvious passion for these songs, not to mention her always prodigious vocal talents, make it hard to quibble with the end results.
Stand-out tracks here include the opener, "Peggy Gordon," "Paddy's Lament," about an Irish immigrant forced into battle in the Civil War upon his arrival in the U.S., and "Molly Malone," turned here into a sort of dirge which, as its content suggests, might be a more appropriate form than it has traditionally been given. The best and most surprising song here is perhaps "Oro Se Do Bheatha `Bhaile," one of two songs on the album sung entirely in Gaelic. It's also the most pop-sounding tune in this collection, no doubt a beneficiary of what were attempts, in O'Connor's own words, to "sexy these songs up a bit." Translated as "You Are Welcome Home," the song is about the return home from battle of Grace O'Malley, a warrior noblewoman of Ireland at the time of Elizabeth I. Clearly, O'Connor chose to do this song as much for its symbolic implications as its historic ones.
It's probable that Sinead O'Connor's future work will never be able to match the passion and naïve self-assuredness of her first two albums. The same is true of Sean-Nos Nua. However, that having been said, O'Connor has created an album that manages to bridge the gap between the new and the old, for the most part succeeding where others may have created kitsch. Sean-Nos Nua will please her fans, satisfy those of Irish music in general and be found worthy of breaking out every St. Patrick's Day by most everyone else.

Repairs some of the damage done to Ireland by the likes of Riverdance. 6.9 out of 10.

What else do you want? Mystical Irish classics taken out of the peat bogs, cleaned up a tad, and injected with a little sex appeal. Sinead O'Connor's voice---which, incidentally, has been recently chosen by PSOP (Polling Systems of Paradise) to announce the Coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, *AND* belt the final anthem celebrating the victory of Good over Evil (Celine would sing it, but she's on the losing team). You've got Sharon Shannon squeezin' her squeezie-box, Steve Wickham ploinking his thingie, Christy Moore singing with Ms Fire-On-Babylon in a Legend-meets-Legend vocal rainstorm. You've got Adrian Sherwood doing a little Massive Attackey bits on a few numbers, and you've got 13 songs that no one---NO ONE---will be able to listen to, straight through, without shedding at least one tear, having one arm raised in gooseflesh, or drifting off into the best dream one could possibly ever dream. The *bean sidhe* (BANSHEE, ye fools!) and Ireland's wackiest but most brilliant singer of all time scorches the world with her genius once again. Who would have thought, after all this madness, that she could put out such a vocally, musically, spiritually, hair-raisingly brilliant platter, given her various detours and lovably daffy experimentations. This one, little ducks, is the one you put up there... right between the 'Lion & the Cobra' and 'I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got.' I dare anyone to say that this isn't soul-music of the highest, most mind-blowing caliber. Best of all, even your Granny will bust a seam in her surgical stockings with pure enjoyment upon hearing this record. Why? Cuz' your granny knows powerful mojo when she hears it...and you'd best listen well.

One of the best things about my childhood was my father's singing, in the car, or near any place for that matter. These are the songs he sang! This is a gift. If you have an ounce of Irish blood it will stir something in you.