Blackbirds & Thrushes
Irish songbirdNiamh Parsonshas built an esteemed career fronting the Celtic bandArcadyand her own band, the Loose Connections, but also as a soloist with a catalog that sprawls from magnificent-days-of-yore balladry to contemporary rockist folk. Taking flight here on the lissome and lovelyBlackbirds & Thrushes, Parsons flitters and soars with her silver-water voice spinning gold from traditional tunes largely learned from other singers at the renowned Goilan singers club. Pipes, whistles, acoustic bass and guitar, and piano ring round the rosy tones of broken vibrato that make magic of simple alliterative or rhyming refrains such as "Rye fol de dol diddle dol day" or "When cockle shells make Christmas bells / Then I would lose my love for thee." Reminiscent ofSandy Denny-eraFairport Convention, the band provides sparse framework--chops so righteous as to play and sing with equal measures of abandon and restraint. Parsons wends her chords around each note, refracting the sound against warm light, bending, breaking, and infusing each note with clarity and conviction.--Paige La Grone