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Review: 'HANNIGAN, LISA'
'Passenger'   

-  Label: 'Hoop Records'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '10th October 2011'

Our Rating:
The excitement of being far from home is often diminished by a longing for what has been left behind. Being away from familiar surroundings can amplify emotional attachments and make you see them from a fresh perspective.

Lisa Hannigan's superb second album has ten songs generated by the "feeling of transience and nostalgia that the constant travelling evoked". The album cover highlights these themes with a situationist map illustrating the three main places where the record was recorded: Dublin, Brooklyn and West Cork.

The relatively carefree charm of her Mercury prize nominated debut, See Sew is still present but Passenger is a much more immediate and confident sounding album.

It is helped in no small part by Joe Henry's crisp production and Lucy Wilkins' classy string arrangements.

From the big orchestral opening chords of Home, you know Lisa means business; "so far from home, so far to go and we've only just begun" she sings with a mixture of full blooded passion and heartfelt yearning.

From then on, only the sloppy sentimentality of Sleep, with guest vocals by Ray LaMontagne, feels out of place.

The rest of the tracks are evocative traveller's tales or bitter sweet love songs refreshingly free of the clichés that normally go with this territory.

The title track is a kind of micro diary of adventures in America
while the morbid humour of Safe Travels (Don't Die) offers some sanguine advice on how to stay alive on the road: "Don't bungee jump or ignore a strange lump and a gasoline pump's not a toy".

The most upbeat tunes are the single, Knots, and What'll Do. For the latter her vocals have a kind of smoky trip-hop rhythm that made me think of Martina Topley-Bird's contribution to Tricky's Maxinquaye.

Two outstanding songs are dedicated to former loves. Paper House is full of wistful memories ("we walked in hallowed places then") while my favourite track, Little Bird, is equally touching yet contains a more angry subtext "a lie burns long but the truth bites quick" and a defiant self confidence: "I think of you often but, for once, I meant what I said".

Passenger is the sound of a singer who knows exactly what she wants to say and happily she has found an able team of fellow journeymen and women to give expression to her resolve.

Lisa Hannigan's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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HANNIGAN, LISA - Passenger