sean nos-nua
Hummingbird Records (UK/Ireland) & Vanguard Records(USA/Canada)
                                          October 8, 2002
Sinéad O'Connor's first studio record since 2000's Faith and Courage takes her far into her Irish heritage with 13 traditional songs dusted off and set to new arrangements. Accompanied by stellar Irish and English-based musicians such as Donal Lunny (guitar, bouzouki, keyboard, bodhran, bodhran bass) and vocalist Christy Moore, O'Connor, who also coproduced, casts a hypnotic spell, making the old songs resonate with pulsing rhythms and sounds. Such contemporary treatment takes nothing away from the austere splendor of the material--in fact, this often seems a mystical recording just recovered from some ancient vault. Whether pining over unrequited love ("Peggy Gordon") or bemoaning the plight of a soldier who fled the Irish wars, only to be conscripted under Abraham Lincoln in the War Between the States ("Paddy's Lament"), O'Connor delivers an intimate and thoroughly mature performance, her whispered voice occasionally giving way to a primal scream. Melancholy to the core and astonishingly beautiful. (from amazon.com)

Other reviewers have not been as kind to Sinead's first all-Irish album. Heres a review from Disc Domain, by Brent Simon :

She’s known chiefly for her hit of fragile heartbreak (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), but as her nearly decade-old, unrepentant papal shredding proved, Sinéad O’Connor has always had a serpentine quality and slightly subjugated rage (for those who doubt, listen to “You Made Me a Thief of Your Heart,” her amazing contribution to the In the Name of the Father soundtrack) bubbling just underneath the surface, qualities that stand in stark contrast to her ethereal voice and lend the best of her work a certain edginess. Unfortunately, those essences are completely abandoned on her latest album.

Billed by its cover sticker as “the album she’s wanted to make her whole life,” Sean-Nos Nua offers up 13 treacly tunes (it’s not until 10 tracks in, with “Baidin Fheilimi,” that we get even a faint murmur of emotional impact), inexcusable even as traditional folk melodies, which they heavily recall. O’Connor sings with characteristic heartrending tenderness — she’s still got a great voice — but with abundant references to specific hills, dales, rivers and valleys, she could be a friggin’ cartographer.

Then there are lyrics like “Well, I sol’ me horse and cow/My little pig and sow/My father’s farm of land I then departed,” and maudlin melodies that make you feel like you should be mournfully raking a barren potato field. This album is a snooze. “But what do I know? Maybe I’m just an overcritical bastard,” I thought. So I put on Angela’s Ashes and spun O’Connor’s disc again to test my multimedia hybrid hypothesis and, yes, I’m happy to report that Sean-Nos Nua serves as a convincing alternate audio track to Alan Parker’s film of bleak, grimy despair and the adrift hope that (sort of) exists in its filthy, filthy midst. As anything else, though, it’s a waste of time.

Another unkind review comes to us courtesy of BlogCritic.com who also rules Biscuit Index :

I'm not a big fan of going to the dentist. In fact, I would have to say that if I were to write down a list of everything I'd rather do before going to the dentist, you'd find 99 other things before you chanced upon number 100 which would be having all my skin peeled off with a cheese grater and then being submerged in a vat of rubbing alcohol. But every single one of those things, including going to the dentist, would be preferable to listening to Sinead O'Connor's upcoming release again.

While I could point out the usual drivel about how she is an underrated singer, I won't. She screams. She whines. She pushes the boundary of what could be mistaken for talent (almost as much as some of the early contestants of American Idol did this past summer). Appropriately titled, Sean-Nos Nua, O'Connor's latest effort is about as unintelligible as the title suggests.

Granted, I'm not Irish so perhaps I don't have the right background to appreciate her vocal styling (or perhaps the fact that I have ears precludes me from enjoying this album, I don't know) but I can say, I didn't like it. At all. Not even the empty spaces between songs which made my ears bleed.

For those of you interested, the album will be released to the masses on October 8, 2002 unless my guess that this caterwauling new record is indeed the portent of the coming apocalypse is correct. In which case, I'll see you all in hell.
1. Peggy Gordon
2. Her Mantle So Green
3. Lord Franklin
4. The Singing Bird
5. Óró, Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile
6. Molly Malone
7. Paddy’s Lament
8. The Moorlough Shore
9. The Parting Glass
10. Báidín Fheilimí
11. My Lagan Love
12. Lord Baker (with Christy Moore)
13. I’ll Tell me Ma
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