Niall Kelly
Album: Hand In Fire
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.niallkellymusic.com

I'm going to invent a new genre to cover, "Hand In Fire" the debut album from Derry born singer/songwriter Niall Kelly. And if I've not actually invented the term, then it's down to a bit a parallel thought process, Celticana is the word, mixing predominantly US based folk music styles with Celtic sensibilities, particularly in the lyrical construction.

Kelly covers a number of western Atlantic, genres, country, blues and at times good old fashioned rock 'n' roll, but a consistent factor across the style whoring is the way he puts the words together. The phrases and inflections wouldn't be out of place in either traditional or more importantly show band tunes.

He's gathered a fair sized unit around for the album and I feel it would be remiss of me to go through the album review without mentioning the keyboard skills of Alberto Manuzzi, who alternately contributes good old fashioned honky-tonk piano and the classic sound of the Hammond Organ.

Another musician that I feel I need to comment on is Caitlin Kelly whose fiddle work adds some really delicate and subtle support to Niall's vocals over a number of tracks. It's particularly noticeable on the really poignant tracks and really supports the expressiveness of the vocal style.

I'm a big fan of singer/songwriters that don't restrict themselves too much by aligning to a single genre. It does work well sometimes, but similarly there are some songs that express themselves better in a sound away from the core, it also has the advantage of stopping the artists becoming pigeonholed. More importantly it gives the song a chance to be really expressed.

That said there were a couple of times on the album where I got the impression that Kelly performs the songs in a number of different ways live and couldn't completely nail how he wanted the song to be when it was going to be permanently captured in a single way, "Seen The Dreams" being a good example of that.

That said those moments are few and far between. From the moment the song transforms out of the opening track, "Lady Dancer" into "Working For Your Pardon" you know that you are going to get an album that is going to allow every song maximum expression.

Ultimately "Hand In Fire" is a decent selection of songs that fall along a wide arc of sounds, but with a lyrical style that neatly stitches the whole together. Entertaining!

Neil King