Oliver Cole: Wingspan (Supermarket Sounds) ★★★★★
Doubt, melancholy and memories swoop through Oliver Cole’s songs like bats in a cave. He says his fourth solo album contains fragments of life stories viewed through a blurry lens. That implies ambiguity, but Cole is too smart a songwriter to hide what he means to say. In poignant songs such as Put Out the Fire (“remember that time that we had, when all of the stars, they aligned”), High and Low (“I know if you could see me, oh, you’d laugh out loud, I’m so responsible now”) and First Time in Your Life (“there are things that I could tell you, but I don’t know if they would help you. I’d probably just be talking to myself”), he allows the past to remind him of how bittersweet life can be. Sonically, the bucolic mix of Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Beatlesesque balladry is exceptional.
RuthAnne: The Moment (Mná Music) ★★★★☆
Ruth Anne Cunningham has spent 20 years or so writing songs for higher-profile pop singers, using incidents in their lives to create relatable hit songs, but the Dubliner’s second studio album is all about her own experiences, good and bad, across the years. While the narratives focus on the self (declaration, celebration, triumphs, failures, healing, pain), the musical style is a mix of soul and pop that references classic storytellers such as Carole King and singers such as Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé and Alicia Keys.
MayKay: MayKay (GrainStore Records) ★★★☆☆
After Fight Like Apes, Le Galaxie and several other collaborations, MayKay releases her debut solo album – and wouldn’t you know, it’s a cornucopia of singular tracks that present her in a new and original light. High points are terrific, saw-toothed pop songs: she delivers Good Wife, Busted, My Top 5 and Funerals in laconic, conversational tones; Forgive Me and Boys have a wry country lilt rooted in melancholy. By comparison, the likes of Dating Shit, Let That Boy Know, and Fire seem halfhearted. The songs have apparently been resting on a hard drive for four years, which might account for the occasional interruption of sonic zest across the album. But this is wholly distinctive music from someone who avoids the ordinary.
Ger Eaton: Seasons Change (Dimple Discs) ★★★☆☆
Ger Eaton describes his long-gestating debut album as about a relationship break-up, “from the glowing bloom of its springtime right through to its wintry conclusion”. So it’s advisable to have a few hankies nearby, as emotions run deep in songs as elegantly textured as Heaven Knows, Home Again, Phoenix (Reborn), Hollow, The Time It Takes to Fall, and To the Ones. Orchestral arrangements lend the songs a 1960s baroque pop flavour, deftly referencing the likes of John Barry, Scott Walker, Burt Bacharach and The Zombies. The album is launched with a no-expense-spared show at the NCH, in Dublin, on Thursday, October 23rd.
J Smith: I Stood There Naked... (Yurn Records) ★★★★☆
J Smith’s second solo album, which follows his superb debut, (...) And You Chose Not to Laugh, from 2021, once again shows what a gifted songwriter he is. Profoundly serious without wallowing in the abyss, he makes life-altering and life-affirming topics his forte. He is also blessed a sweet, delicate voice that taps into the heart of the issues he sings about, and a way with melody lines and words that more often than not lifts the song to new heights, irrespective of the subject matter.
