Superbly strange, spectral, unearthly, raw, and striking, using traditional Irish instruments with twist, and a vocal delivery that’s idiosyncratic, passionate and primal, the County Kerry singer-songwriter Ronan Kealy’s new boundary-pushing alternative folk release distils the ancient and eerie folklore through a modern mangle. With previous work concentrated on themes such The Great Irish Famine (2022), and inspiration also coming from UCD’s Folklore Collection on the fabulous website duchas.ie, (“I delved into the manuscripts—endless eyewitness accounts of Fairy Forts being stepped into and the land altering, the familiar mutating … Farmers, teachers, the sober, the smart—all losing their way home one way or the other”), this third album spirals like a twisting mandrake into modern trends, concentrating more on the bewildering madness of the present. Lyrics explore forces that work against nature (New Road, Welcome to My Mountain), the rise of the far-right (Small Violence, Today My Uncle Told Me), and confrontations with mortality (Old Bell, Start Digging). The album title, says Junior Brother, “represents the moment after being led astray, when the grip of madness releases you and you suddenly see your way home. It may reflect the doom of a world gone mad, but it also represents the end of darkness, and the start of a new road.”
Co-produced with John 'Spud' Murphy, it really is an arresting, gripping, original and visceral aural experience, with some equally magnetic videos. There are some comparisons with the equally brilliant works of alternative English folk such as that of Richard Dawson and his 2017 album Peasant with those full-throated vocals and unhinged emotions and stories, or the disturbing, flute-filled anarchy of Gazelle Twin’s truly innovative Pastoral (2018).
Here though is Junior Brother’s distinct sound, whipping up a frenzy and torrid tales and states of mind with whistles, flutes, drone sounds, guitars, various percussion and more, summoning a sometimes nightmarish merry-go-round whirl of insanity such as on Welcome To My Mountain or Small Violence. The former, he explains, “stemmed from my attempt at writing a slipjig – the song’s main whistle riff was the result. With this, the song mutated into quite a large beast of a yoke, the beginning of a journey into the mouth of modern madness. The lyrics were largely taken from an actual firsthand account of a man getting lost in a Fairy Fort while walking home, heard from UCD’s great folklore podcast Blúiríní Béaloidis.” Small Violence also expresses deep, dark unrest with its rich tones and vocals: “From little word / To little hand / Spreads small violence / From foul mouth / To unhappy woman / Small violence / I went alone/ Toward a / Heavy light.” As well as the other songs mentioned above, other highlights (though it is all highlights) include A Lot Of Love ( “a response to life's tight spots, when fighting hate with love gets you into a dark corner. Some of us keep fighting with love anyway, because, if nothing else, it feels good to spread, and sometimes, it wins”), and Start Digging – an infectiously odd, lively jig of flutes and strutting rhythms and ranting, taking us very much into the netherworld: “I picked the day out of my teeth, I never went to sleep, I’m terrified I’ll dream and meet the Memory Man …” Feverishly and fabulously different. Out on Strap Originals. Tour dates here.
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