The Next Chapter

If 2016's River Waiting saw Northern Irish quintet Connla anointed as the ‘next big thing,’ their aptly titled follow-up sees them beginning to flex and feel their way to a more finessed sound. Less adrenalin-driven than its predecessor, The Next Chapter finds the youthful five-piece showing signs of growing maturity. As before, the musicianship is formidable in a blend of traditional tunes and new, self-penned material. Album opener ‘Organised Chaos’ is a joyful ensemble piece lit up by Ciaran Carlin's free-spirited flute, Paul Starrett's driving guitar and Ciara McCafferty's wordless vocals. She is especially evocative in hushed accounts of Seán Tyrrell's ‘One Starry Night’ and American gospel song ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ (lit up by Emer Mallon's glinting harp), and in a rousing, vivid take on Dick Gaughan's ‘Sail On’. The instrumentals are dispatched with all the consummate ease that is fast becoming Connla's signature, Carlin's ‘Mighty Makena's’ being cheekily infused with a light, lounge-bar insouciance. The Arco String Quartet flesh out Starrett's poignant portrait of a fabled ghost ship, ‘The SS Baychimo’, where Mallon darts through its spectral strangeness with will-o’-wisp lightness, her harp then coming vivaciously to the fore in the atmospheric ‘Matinee at Charlie's’. More please.