Seán Corcoran, Dónal Maguire & Gerry Cullen
Album: Louth Mouths From Drogheda
Label: Rossendale
Tracks: 17
Website: http://www.donalmaguire.co.uk

The clumsy-sounding but almost inevitable pun of the title can readily be forgiven simply because it's so very apt - for Seán, Dónal and Gerry all attended the same school in Drogheda, Co. Louth and sang in the town's parish church choir. All three singers are still very much active in the field - Gerry as a member of the re-formed Voice Squad, Dónal as a solo performer of considerable stature, and Seán performing with the band Cran - and have received justified wide critical acclaim for their captivating interpretation of traditional material.

This latest project, instigated by Dónal, brings the three together in glorious unaccompanied mode on a magnificent collection of traditional songs from their native county (which, though Ireland's smallest county, is indisputably rich in terms of song). The majority of the songs on the disc were collected initially by Seán himself, and almost all of them will already be familiar to aficionados of Irish traditional song - but that's no reason to expect a groan of over-recognition or to harbour the dread of yet another record of "same old tired repertoire". These are without exception fresh, vibrant, living, breathing performances: revealing and insightful, understanding of every nuance, and entirely dedicated to the song-carrying process. Honours are divided entirely equally between the three singers, with each of them performing four solo songs and the remaining five being performed in very effective trio arrangements with "turnabout" verse allocation and all joining in for the choruses.

The disc's 17 tracks are well sequenced too, with two strikingly different versions of The Wild Rover providing neat bookends - the first (an attention-grabbing opener if ever there was one, here both brilliantly ornamented and deeply expressive) uses the hauntingly beautiful variant and tune sourced from Pat Usher, whereas the second, though a similarly biting affair in terms of its expanded lyric, adopts an altogether more rousing (albeit still unfamiliar) tune, this time sourced from Brigie Cumiskey (who also provided the collection with the ballad of Sweet Duleek Gate). No fewer than four of the songs on the disc (including the declamatory love song The Flower Of Beamore and the epic ribald depiction of The Wedding of Sweet Baltray) emanate from the pen of Drogheda song-maker John Sheil. Although the three singers' voices sound very well together, their individual styles are sufficiently contrasted to enable their solo performances to make a great impact, and several of the disc's highlights occur within these selections: Dónal's excellent, unerringly poised account of the night-visiting song The Grey Cock and his brilliantly decorated retelling of John Barbour (a mutation of Child 100, aka Willie O' Winsbury); Seán's splendidly assured take on the infamous Lamkin ballad; and Gerry's uncommonly fine rendition of The Factory Maid - to name but three. A handful of the solo performances (like Dónal's animated take on William Taylor) also benefit from chorus vocals from the other singers.

The atmosphere of the whole disc, as befits the fully committed performances, is literally spellbinding; this can be attributed to the close recording, sure, which is replete with exactly the right kind of presence, both grabbing and then keeping the listener's ear right from the very opening note, and accurately conveying the distinctive personalities of the singers. The CD's 72 minutes is over before you know it - and that's no mean achievement in this fickle goldfish's-attention-span age! And the booklet's succinct yet scholarly and highly informative notes are as exemplary as the performances and recording. One of the finest discs of Irish traditional song that you're likely to hear in a long time.

David Kidman