O'Hooley & Tidow
Album: The Fragile
Label: No Masters
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.ohooleyandtidow.com

As with the previous cut, "Silent June", I've had to listen "The Fragile" for the unadulterated pleasure of it several times before I could even consider putting my review head on. In all honesty, I can only come to the conclusion that if this album doesn't propel O'Hooley & Tidow into the public consciousness, we might as well give up now, Simon Cowell and his sycophantic, instant, here today and gone tomorrow crowd would have won.

"The Fragile" is an album that deserves to be more than a critical success. If it was a series of paintings, galleries would build exhibitions around it and the public would flock to it. There is a vivid majesty about the way the songs are constructed and arranged. One that in some respects bypasses the origin of the words and music. First and foremost the arrangements give those elements the space to be admired.

There is a broad canvas for O'Hooley & Tidow's brushes, such a range of subject matter, songs of observation, politics, social history, the characters captured from both history and the imagination. People and pets fondly remembered. Flawed characters have always made for better songs than perfect ones, but when heart meets fragility, that's when lyrical fireworks start to fly.

If I were to be really picky there is one flaw, the title. At times delicate, perhaps, but fragile no, it's an album of strengths, some obvious, others within, but it's oh such a minor quibble.

Musically it's difficult to place the album. It draws in from the Gallic as well as the English, judiciously reaching across the acoustic spectrum as it charms and soothes its way into your heart and soul. It matters not where the music came from, it's how it makes you feel that's important and this is an album that makes you feel special. That tingle you get when you know something is just right.

Similarly the guests, the songs the duo didn't write, as well as the ones that perform on the album, including former cohorts, Jackie Oates, Anna Esslemont and Cormac Byrne, feel as though they've become part of the canvas sneaking a small signature into the bigger picture.

Still that's enough of reading about the album, get online, order your copy and tell your friends, this one's a masterpiece.

Neil King