A Terrible Beauty

More than half a century after his debut LP, Christy Moore’s first outing on Claddagh Records shows there’s still mileage aplenty in the famed Irish singer. Fire in the belly, too, albeit here righteous anger glows and scorches rather than the incinerating flames of old. There’s poignant indignation in James Cramer’s ‘Lyra McKee’ hymning the young journalist murdered during a Derry riot, a coruscating take down of Ireland’s far-right agitators in the part-spoken ‘Snowflakes’ and biting critique in Jim Page’s ‘Palestine’. The Briany Branigan-penned lead-off single ‘Black and Amber’, with Moore’s son Andy harmonising on vocals, offers a child’s bleak portrait of life with an alcoholic father. ‘Cumann na Mná’, co-written with Mick Blake, lands punch after punch on the hypocrisy of British antagonism towards the Irish. Sterling support from multi-instrumentalists Gavin Murphy, Seamie O’Dowd, Seán Óg Graham and Jimmy Higgins bolster an album that gets under the skin and stays there.