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Reviews |
| LIZ DISC JUST "GRAND" | ||
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LIZ DISC JUST "GRAND"
by Mike Farragher -- Irish voice -- wed., May 22, 2002 Liz McNicholl has released Grand Central Station, a powerful debut CD that strikes the perfect mixture of Irish folk and pop. The County Meath native has a great talent for interpretation, employing impeccable taste in picking the appropriate cover tunes to highlight her cotton candy vocals. Traditional flutes and fiddles are the tools employed as she digs for gold from the songbooks of artists as diverse as John Prine and Stevie Nicks. There's a chilling, echoed quality to Prine's "Angel from Montgomery". It's as if she's singing to an empty house at the Grand Ole Opry. McNicholl does a great job on Fleetwood Mac's bitter-sweet "Landslide," while the tin whistle provides a seductive Celtic quality to the Sting classic "Fields of Gold." She offers a pair of her own songs that stand up well against the formidable talents of the famous songwriters who penned the other tunes. Soft country fiddling anchors the Appalachian-tinged title track, and "Healing Heart" is a gorgeous ballad. A moving tribute to the 9/11 victims closes this strong collection. Songs of this nature are either graphically inappropriate or too sappy, but "The Bravest" strikes the right balance of reverence and honor to those affected by the tragedy. (The song was written by Tom Paxton with Liz's proceeds going to the WTC relief efforts). "The pipers play 'Amazing Grace' as the coffins come in view/they must have seen it coming when they turned to face the fire." Alone whistle cires in mourning to close out the track, and the listener is left with a chill in the spine that lasts long after the CD stops spinning. "The Bravest" has garnered some airplay on both sides of the Atlantic, and this reviewer wouldn't be a bit surprised if the rest of this CD takes off. With Grand Central, McNicholl is destined to become a welcome new voice in the bustling Irish music genre. Article copyright © 2002, The Irish Voice |
