Selections for several tastes on this compilation — my own swings over to the sharp-cut softness of Julie Fowlis from the Outer Hebrides and T With the Maggies from County Donegal, but there’s Sharon Shannon, too, for anyone who wants American-Irishisms. Celts without their roots in the British Isles are not totally ignored, either, though more of them wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Susana Seivane appears with Spanish guitar and Cécile Corbel harps in from France on a cloud of Breton glimmer.
This is a singer’s album, the sound throughout is clear, luminous, nonharsh, with an absolute absence of rough earth and musical sandpaper — there are no Celtic women equivalents of the Pogues, apparently, which seems like a gap in the world. The women here never lose their tempers, either, though the sight of a man home from the war with one leg missing and an arm blown off is enough to somber anybody.