It is extremely rare that I review music here at SSD. One of the primary reasons is that I don’t often purchase music, instead getting it through outlets such as Pandora and Youtube. The significance of this is that listening to music in that fashion means it is unlikely that I will listen to a particular album in its entirety, instead catching random samples of an artist’s work. Once in a while, however, the hope of a good aural experience is just too good to pass up, and such was the case with Lisa Hannigan’s second solo effort, Passenger.
Having only heard the title track, I gamely put this on my Amazon wishlist and received it in my Christmas stocking, a gift from my dear wife. It was a calculated risk, as you will see, but one which has paid off with unexpected dividends, for Passenger is the kind of diversely creative album that will have you hitting the “repeat all” button while you engage in an ongoing internal debate about which track is your favorite.
Where much of her debut album, Sea Sew, was filled with toe-tapping, upbeat melodies, Passenger is a more mature, varied and at times melancholic outing with songs that have a melodic heft. In short it is the kind of album I had hoped to find, one that I cannot help but want to listen to, start to finish, over and over again.
Continue reading Passenger ~Lisa Hannigan →
