Traditional Singing from Dublin

Macdara Yeates has played no small part in platforming a new generation of Irish folk singers via his stewardship of the monthly ‘The Night Before Larry Got Stretched’ singing sessions in Dublin's feted pub, The Cobblestone, incubator to the likes of Lisa O’Neill, and Lankum's Ian Lynch and Radie Peat. Here, the self-styled ‘singer of auld songs’ steps away from longtime associates Skipper's Alley for his debut solo album. It's a heady introduction to his now bracing, now baleful, baritone voice that sounds as if it's been dug from the deepest, most fragrant turf. A lone guitar or bodhrán accompanies half of the ten tracks, the others basking in Yeates’ unaccompanied voice. And what a voice. Timeless and as nourishing as a pint of the black stuff, Yeates brings a stout, stirring poetry to a set of standards, mining ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye’ for all its tragicomic poignancy, knowingly channelling Luke Kelly in ‘The Kerry Recruit’ and transforming Dominic Behan's overlooked ‘Our Last Hope’ into a forlorn, heart-aching classic. Essential listening.