#river lea

A band of Irish brothers threads the needle between spare, contemporary songwriting and reeling traditional stomps. The two, Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn, alternate ruminative confessionals and Celtic barn-raisers, their songs etched with melancholy but also lit up from inside with the joy of communal music making. They’re grounded in the past, but facing the current moment; there are eerie threads of electronic sound tucked into the nicotine-stained warmth of the old songs.

“Sitric Road,” for instance, is pared to essentials, just a laconic strum of guitar and a soft burnished voice. It moves easily, casually, without an ounce of strain, a little vibrato in the hearty vocal mid-range, a fluttering sensitivity in the higher registers. The title refers to a neighborhood of Dublin found north of the Liffey, one which still has Nordic street names dating back to the Vikings’ occupation and traditional venues that have hardly changed since electricity. It’s gentrifying now, like most of Dublin, pushing out the bohemian element, and the song recounts the precariousness and joy of a life in art. “You had it all but never learned to fall/Living hand to mouth and still the richest of them all,” sings one or the other Mac Gloinn.

The other single, “The Flood,” is beefier, fleshed out with fiddle and guitars and drums beating out a reeling dance-like rhythm. “Ay-ay-ay, watch the water rise,” sings the whole crew. It’s a buoyant chorus that celebrates music and friendship amid catastrophe, people dancing barefoot on concrete floors as the water pours in. “There was a time we kept each other floating/all tied together and bobbing up and down/not for a time we could hold back the flood, but the old river rolls and swallowed our tale,” sings, again, an unspecified Mac Gloinn (no credits).

All Tied Together is a very Irish record in its morose lilt, its stunted but colorful characters, its way of whirling joy and despair together without losing either’s distinct character. The band captures a richness of sound from collaborators including Shazad Ismaily, Sam Amidon and a roster of Irish players, yet the songs remain fragile and evanescent. It echoes traditional sounds without being bound them and is natural and lifelike as breathing. Well done.