Not a lot going on this week. I almost made my review this week of new releases by Christina Aguilera or maybe even Hanson. But opted instead for an artist I'd never heard of before. Based only on the description of "alternative singer/songwriter" and "Irish". Good thing. Because these are some well-written songs. Songwriter Conor O'Brien is certainly alphabetically close to Conor Oberst. But you would have resembled the two anyway. The latter being among indie-folk's most prolific entities this past decade. But beyond their love of wordplay, Villagers employ some of the dramatic build-ups of orchestration that I've recently heard from other British-isle exports like Frightened Rabbit and the Rumble Strips.
Having complimented that though, my favorite song is the mellowest, quietest one. "The Meaning of the Ritual" is a confession of our inherent selfish nature in the realm of love. A close second is the exploding "Pieces" - which starts out stark, with a minimalist clinking of a 1950's style doo-wop piano, but the dynamically shifts to a orchestration wall-of-sound overload; complete with Conor actually howling to a moon. It might as well have been followed by an excerpt of Paul McCartney singing about brushing his teeth or something.
(4 of 5 stars)
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