Customer Reviews

Through the Bitter Frost & Snow

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great album. McKeown, accompanied principally by upright bassist / backing vocalist Lindsey Horner, have produced a bittersweet ode to the christmas season. The music has a melancholy reflective of the "bitter frost and snow," and the lack of sunlight, of the winter season. And yet, "through" the melancholy (as the title implies), there is a warmth and a smile that reminds you of blazing yule log, christmas lights, a hot cup of egg nog or buttered rum, and friends and family huddled together.

In some ways it pairs well with the Chieftain's christmas opus, The Bells of Dublin. This one is a little more jazzy, think perhaps of Vince Guaraldi-esque wandering basslines. I'm not going to do a song-for-song breakdown, because I think the album has such a great flow that the whole composition is greater even than the individual numbers.

I hope you enjoy this christmas cd as much as I do.

A wonderful musical effort. I love Susan's voice and she uses it here to great effect. Wonderful song arc with great versions of traditionals such as "Green Grow'th the Ivy" and "Auld Land Syne" and a top notch version of Leo Kretzner's wonderful song "Bold Orion". Marvelous ensemble playing in a jazzy celtic manner.

I bought this album for the song "Bold Orion," by Leo Kretzner, which I heard performed back in 1983 by Dick and Anne Albin, and has haunted me since. The song apparently has that quality, as Ms. McKeown relates a similar story in the liner notes. I really liked the McKeown/Horner rendition, which perfectly caught the mood of having one's heart caught by diamond stars on a frigid night, the contrast between the human scale and the eternal.

The other pieces are well done winter mood pieces, without the marzipan sweetness of some Christmas albums. Here, it's dark and cold, but light and hope are not absent. The comparison by another reviewer to Loreena McKennitt is apt; both will attract the same audiences.

It is true that McKeown's smoky alto voice is one of the most beautiful in modern folk music, but I don't think she uses it to its full potential. Traditional songs with clear melodies-- such as "Christ Child" and "Green Groweth the Holly" are exquisite indeed, but McKeown indulges too often in singing songs of her own composition. McKeown is, at best, a mediocre lyricist. I don't know if she left the melodies out of her own songs (the title track, for example) unintentionally, or if she imagines that she is being modern and hip by so wasting her voice. Songs without music may wash with lovers of alternative rock, but people who listen to this sort of thing are looking to please thier ears. I believe that Mckeown's specatacular, powerful voice could make her as popular as Loreena McKennit, if only she'd realize where her talents lie. Her "Bushes and Briars", an album of traditional songs, most of which have melodies, is a better bet.