A Fairly Indistinct Loreena McKennitt Album Comes From An Ancient Muse

The Good: Excellent voice, Good instrumentals, Some musical diversity
The Bad: Disappointing range, Short, Nothing distinct, Vocals are incomprehensible
The Basics: Loreena McKennitt uses a number of musical instruments including her melodious voice to create music ranging from classical Middle Eastern to something bordering on pop that says nothing.


For the last few months as I've reviewed a ton of c.d.s and exposed myself to all sorts of music, I've begun to run into artists, performers and albums that quite simply underwhelm me. Even great artists like Elton John with his Songs From The West Coast and Melissa Etheridge with Your Little Secret have produced albums that are uninspiring, that don't impress the listener with any one single or with an overall sense of anything. I've been branding such albums as "indistinct" and I believe that might well be the best word for the experience. So, for example, after listening to Loreena McKennitt's blase Christmas album To Drive The Cold Winter Away, I was left with almost no impression. Picking up McKennitt's latest outing, An Ancient Muse, I find myself in something of the same predicament.

With nine tracks, clocking in at a little over fifty-four minutes, An Ancient Muse is a remarkably average musical experience. For those not familiar with Loreena McKennitt's works, she is a classically trained musical artist and performer who is creating Celtic music that has a traditional sound blended with contemporary instruments. As a result, An Ancient Muse contains instrumental tracks like "Kecharitomene," which combines a strong percussion track with a cello, oud, synthesizer and a Celtic bouzouki (I swear, I'm not making these instruments up!). The resulting sound on the instrumental pieces is an intriguing combination of Celtic, Middle Eastern and Chinese sounds. Had I not read the instrument listing, I might have just assumed that "Kecharitomene" was simply employing a zither.

The thing about An Ancient Muse is that I have to give Loreena McKennitt points for her voice and for the instrumentals. This album has a wide array of instruments that are employed, especially in the strings. The liner notes for the album detail McKennitt's travels around Turkey, Greece, China, Cuba and back to Wiltshire studios and it's clear that her journey influenced her music profoundly. She utilizes atypical instruments to create a new classical music that sounds good. "Sacred Shabat," an instrumental written by McKennitt sounds like it could be ancient and is sounds distinctly Middle Eastern. Written in her travels through Turkey and Greece, she employs the kanoun, cello, keyboards, and lyra to make something that sounds both classical and ancient and fresh and new.

The limitation here, though, is that all of the songs with vocals are ponderous, slow and melodic in a vague, ethereal way. McKennitt's voice merges so harmonically with the stringed instruments that is is often difficult to understand just what she is singing. It's hard to get your message across when it can be barely understood. On An Ancient Muse, there's not a single song where the words are clear and centered before the music enough to make them easily comprehended.

This is not to say that Loreena McKennitt does not have a great voice, she does. McKennitt's voice ranges from alto to the lower ranges of soprano territory on An Ancient Muse. She harmonizes perfectly and has amazing pitch. She even seems to be able to articulate her poetry. Some of her songs, like "Beneath A Phrygian Sky" are especially long (fourteen stanzas that create a nine minute song) and she presents it flawlessly.

Except that it can't be understood. I'm on my seventh listen to the album and I can hear her voice on tracks like "Beneath A Phrygian Sky" but I can't understand a single line. Her voice is blended so much with the instrumentals that while it is easy to tell when she is singing and that she has a wonderful voice, it's not easy to tell what she is singing. This contributes to an overall sense of the album being more murky than it ought to be.

Unlike To Drive The Cold Winter Away, though, the songs are varied enough that the album does not blend together in one big presentation of auditory sludge. While the songs that have McKennitt singing are generally slow and ponderous, the instrumental tracks (only two on the album) have faster tempos. This breaks up the album well and prevent it from being a narcoleptic experience.

Because McKennitt is catering to a vocal audience, her emphasis is more on sound and presentation as opposed to actually saying something with her lyrics. The result is that reading her poetry in the liner notes (again, it's indecipherable when listening to on the album), I found myself disappointed. The lines and rhymes are especially simple. So, for example, on "Never-Ending Road (Amhran Duit)," McKennitt writes and sings a simple refrain of "Here is my heart, I give it to you / Take me with you across this land / These are my dreams, so simple so few /Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands." Combined with the slow, singsong vocals, these rhymes are insultingly dull and obvious. I mean, any artist can rhyme "where" with "there" and "here" with "fear." Largely, McKennitt's poems are atmospheric; creating a sense of place and time and merely painting a picture.

That would be enough if the listener could understand them when put to music. Instead, the obfuscation of the lyrics to the music is analogous to a viewing of paintings where the viewers are all required to wear sunglasses. What is the point of painting a picture, creating an image in bright colors, if all who experience it must have it muted?

The result, then, is something indistinct. It is a series of instrumentals that create a new classical sound with pop sensibilities, tracks that might cause the body to sway or groove, but whose deeper meanings are lost. The result is something less original than it is muddied and as someone who has enjoyed other albums by Loreena McKennitt, this is a profound disappointment.

At least it sounds good while disappointing with its musical variety and the quality of McKennitt's voice.

I enjoyed "Penelope's Song" most and found "Never-Ending Road (Amhran Duit)" to be the weakest link.

For other Loreena McKennitt albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Elemental
To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Parallel Dreams
The Visit
The Mask And Mirror
The Book Of Secrets
A Midwinter Night’s Dream

5/10

Check out all the albums this is better and worse than at my Music Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Ethereal, Musically Interesting, Lyrically Indecipherable, The Mask And Mirror Represents McKennitt's Schism!

The Good: Sounds good, Lyrics, vocals and instrumentals are interesting
The Bad: Instrumentals overbear the vocals, A little short
The Basics: Loreena McKennitt's The Mask And Mirror is good, but it prioritized style over substance, which fails to impress me (much)!


I seem, over the years, to have developed something of a love/hate relationship with the music of Loreena McKennitt. She is, to be sure, a wonderful singer and instrumentalist, but she seems obsessed with obscuring her voice with her music. She is an artist who puts sound before any sort of message and because she produced her album The Mask And Mirror, which I am currently failing to enjoy, I am not entirely convinced that she is not a poor producer.

With only eight tracks, one might be impressed that Loreena McKennitt managed to extend the album to over fifty-two minutes worth of music, but I find myself underwhelmed. In fact, I find myself wanting more . . . and different. But this is McKennitt's musical vision. McKennitt only wrote lyrics for three of the eight songs, but she took traditional songs or poems from Yates and speeches from Shakespeare and adapted them for the other five songs. She is credited with writing all of the music and she provides the lead vocals on all of the tracks. As well, she is an accomplished instrumentalist, performing on The Mask And Mirror on dumbeg, keyboards, accordion, synthesizers, harp, piano and organ pipes.

As well, Loreena McKennitt produced The Mask And Mirror, which is probably where I have the biggest beef with her. McKennitt can sing, she can play instruments. She cannot, apparently, mix them to save her own sound. For those unfamiliar with the works of Loreena McKennitt, McKennitt's sound is a mix of classical and modern instruments to create what some might call a contemporary Renaissance Faire sound. For those looking to mix pop and classical, McKennitt seems to be the reigning goddess. And if she wanted to stick to either of those or both and let the sound be the deal, that would be fine. But instead, she has lyrics. McKennitt produces her album such that the lyrics are sublimated below the instrumentals.

Take, for example, "Marrakesh Night Market." This song features quite a bit of percussion (including two drums and "percussion" credited), balalaika, fiddles, bass, synthesizers and electric guitars. There is a deep, pounding rhythm throughout and against that is only McKennitt's soprano wailing voice. I've listened to this album at least eight times today alone (my mother has brought this album with us on several trips in the past) and I know the sound of this song, but I have never once caught a single line McKennitt sings. Come to think of it, I've never caught a single word she has sung in this song! That is how far below the instrumentals the vocals are mixed. Her voice is there, it's part of the mix, but it's not even one of the top three sounds and McKennitt's lyrics are completely obscured. If I didn't go lightly on Tori Amos for the way she sings high and beautifully but completely incomprehensibly through most of Little Earthquakes (reviewed here!), I'm not going lightly on Loreena McKennitt when she does essentially the same thing!

The real shame of it is that it appears McKennitt actually has something to say (or sing) and the lyrics in the liner notes to this album are not bad. In fact, on "Marrakesh Night Market," one of the tracks McKennitt actually wrote, she tells a storysong that is both ethereal and deep when she wrote "Would you like my mask? / Would you like my mirror? / Cries the man in the shadowing hood / You can look at yourself / You can look at each other / Or you can look at the face of your god / The stories are woven / And fortunes are told / The truth is measured by the weight of your gold." And none of that is comprehensible from her vocal performance and the way - even though her pitch is great and forceful - it is mixed to be drown out by the instrumentals.

McKennitt not only has a great sense of classic sound, but she does have a wonderful mind for creating classic sounding verse. Traditional songs, like "The Dark Night Of The Soul" and "The Bonny Swans" have such similar structures and resonances to McKennitt's own verses. So, for example, it is easy to believe that "Full Circle" might come from fifteenth century Spain - which is the sound this album is attempting to evoke, it's something of a concept album - with its lines "Somewhere the sun rose, o'er dunes in the desert / Such was the stillness, I ne'er felt before / Was this the question, pulling, pulling, pulling you / In your heart, in your soul, did you find rest there?" McKennitt asks timeless questions about Man's relationship with god, nature and each other without making them sound like modern questions. She recaptures the innocence portrayed in ancient texts in her poetry and it works perfectly for the songs!

On The Mask And Mirror, Loreena McKennitt is devoted (some might say "obsessed") with creating a strong sense of time, place and mood. This is an album devoted to 15th Century Spain and recreating the excitement and mystery of that time and place for a modern audience with modern instruments. Even when she is using electric guitars and keyboards on "The Mystic's Dream," her lyrics (when they may be heard) succeed in setting the mood and transporting the listener to the desired time and place. Indeed, it is her lyrics "A clouded dream on an earthly night / Hangs upon the crescent moon / A voiceless song in an ageless light / Sings at the coming dawn / Birds in flight are calling there / Where the heart moves the stones / It's there that my heart is longing / All for the love of you" ("The Mystic's Dream") that suck the listener right in.

And despite the mixing problems, Loreena McKennitt has an amazing voice. She is solidly soprano and her vocals are slow, high and haunting throughout this album. She rings out clearest on "The Two Trees" and that is beautiful and hard to dismiss.

Ultimately, though, I want to hear what an artist has to say and my "recommend" is a razor decision. This is an average album, high on mood, light on meaning. McKennitt's musical storytelling ability is obscured by her obsession with prioritizing the impressive backing instruments and the richness of the album might make it ideal for virtually every medieval movie's soundtrack (almost any one of these songs is easy to envision accompanying a hero on his horse galloping across a glade), but not for telling an actual story. The result is that this is good, if not great, mood music, but it is not indispensable.

For other Loreena McKennitt albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Elemental
To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Parallel Dreams
The Visit
The Book Of Secrets
A Midwinter Night’s Dream


5.5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Another Indistinct McKennitt Album, The Visit Fails To Impress

The Good: Voice
The Bad: Music produces over the lyrics, Musically bland, Track to track indistinct, Short
The Basics: Producing over her vocals again so her lyrics are indecipherable, Loreena McKennitt once again fails to impress with The Visit.


As a fan of female singer-songwriters, it might seem quite natural that I would be a fan of Loreena McKennitt. However, I am not and The Visit is one of the albums that helps illustrate exactly to me - and others when I discuss it - why I am not. What songs are comprehensible (namely "Greensleeves") are poorly arranged and performed and the rest pretty much blends into a musical mash that is neither original nor compelling. More than most of McKennitt's albums, The Visit suffers upon replaying (particularly on a continuous loop) because the various songs sound pretty much alike.

This view is treated as something of a heresy among those who love McKennitt and her works, but it is how I come to her various albums. And having had The Visit on high rotation for the day (I've now listened to it a total of eight times, at least), it is a blur of repetitive instrumentations, decent but poorly mixed vocals and and overall slow, hypnotic and unmemorable feel. Unlike most of McKennitt's albums, The Visit is all slow, ponderous and almost universally incomprehensible from the vocals.

With only nine tracks, coming in at 43:09, The Visit is McKennitt's trademark blend of traditional songs arranged by her and her own original works, which tend to sound of the same era. The Visit is McKennitt's Celtic album and one that has traditional songs from the Celts in addition to adapting the poetry of others (Tennyson, Shakespeare, Henry VIII) and putting it to a Celtic instrumentation. Five of the songs are written by McKennitt and she provided original music for two of the others. The other two use their classic music and McKennitt simply performs them.

On The Visit, McKennitt is responsible for the lead vocals on the eight tracks that have vocals. As well, she is musically adept and performs on the keyboards, accordion, harp and bodhran on the album. As well, she does produce the album, so at the end of the day it is hard to suggest this is anything other than Loreena McKennitt's musical vision.

Unfortunately, it is boring. Without fail, the music fails to impress, though it is hard to deny that McKennitt has an amazing soprano voice. Her "la's" on "Tango To Evora" are perfect in pitch and have a hypnotic quality. Unfortunately, they fail to sell the song. A tango is supposed to be a musical expression (and dance) of sublimated sexuality, a raw display of passion, restraint and rejection. This tango is more lethargic and sleepy than passionate.

This is largely the problem with all of the songs on The Visit. The album begins with the narcoleptic "All Souls Night" and continues through McKennitt's somnambulic presentation of "Cymbeline." And in the middle, there are tracks like her take on "Greensleeves," which she attempts to do in the style of Tom Waits and completely fails to replicate or impersonate the gravitas of his gravely performance. Instead, the track just sounds like McKennitt is sleepsinging through that as well.

"Greensleeves" is one of the few songs that McKennitt's vocals can actually be understood on. Instead, most of her songs are plagued by production that sublimates or equalizes her vocals to the same volume as the keyboards, cellos and basses played on the album. It does make one wonder what the point of writing poetry like "Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides / Figures dance around and around / To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness / Moving to the pagan sound. / Somewhere in a hidden memory / Images float before my eyes / Of fragrant nights of straw and bonfires / And dancing till the next sunrise" ("All Souls Night") if one is just going to produce the instrumentals to drown out your own singing. So even when McKennitt has decent lyrics of her own on The Visit, they can hardly be understood by listening to the album.

And, frankly, not all of her lyrics are all that grand. Instead, she frequently uses predictable and tired rhymes in her poetry. For example, on "Courtyard Lullaby," she has singsong lyrics with her rhymes "And when the wind draws strong / Across the cypress trees / The nightbirds cease their songs / So gathers memories." While one does not expect all of her lines to be new and audacious, there is something tired about rhymes like "tree/see," "say/way," and "land/hand." This is not the greatest expression of McKennitt's poetry ever.

That said, it is hard to deny that she has some abilities as a musical storyteller. On "The Old Ways," for example, her poetics are full of decent imagery and she tells a musical storysong that is, at worst, picturesque. Indeed, it is very easy to imagine the setting when one reads her lines "As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea / A vision came o'er me / Of thundering hooves and beating wings / In clouds above" ("The Old Ways").

And I write, quite purposefully "read" those lyrics. "The Old Ways" is a perfect example of how McKennitt produces her sopranic vocals to be sublimated below the instrumentals. On that song, especially, the instrumentals are quite rich with her voice competing against a harp, bodhran, keyboards, bass, uillean pipes, fiddle and electric and acoustic guitars. The song is an extreme, but standard for McKennitt, example of how production can ruin a song and McKennitt, as producer, ought to have known better than so tragically obscure her own lines.

On The Visit, all of the songs are slow and while many of them have a decent number of instruments, the fullness of sound is often overwhelming. And the tracks that do not at least fill the listener's ear up with music tend to be quiet and boring. This is not an exciting album and as a result, even lovers of Celtic music are bound to be disappointed by it and find after a rather short time that it ends up out of high rotation.

As for me, I bow out of even my usual best and worst tracks: this album is just indistinct, musical mush and listeners can do a lot better than what McKennitt gives them on this.

For other Loreena McKennitt albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Elemental
To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Parallel Dreams
The Book Of Secrets
A Midwinter Night’s Dream

3/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Heresy! The Book Of Secrets Is Hardly A Masterpiece (It Sounds Like Loreena McKennitt's Other Albums!)

The Good: Good voice, Musically interesting, Some decent musical poems.
The Bad: Could have been a little longer, Musically derivative within album, Vocals obscure lyrics.
The Basics: Loreena McKennitt's The Book Of Secrets is a decent Celtic pop album, but its musical repetitive quality is somewhat stifling to those listening to it over and over again.


Before the lynch mob of Loreena McKennitt fans I have been duly warned about begins to swarm, despite my title, I am recommending the album The Book Of Secrets, which is largely regarded by fans of Loreena McKennitt to be one of her best works and to the best of my knowledge is her greatest commercial success. And at the end of the day, I enjoy the music of Loreena McKennitt, but when one looks at many of her albums, they suffer from her own production as she produces the instrumentals over her vocals and her vocal stylings obscure her lyrics. On The Book Of Secrets, an album I have enjoyed for years, this problem, as well as reusing her own tunes on the same album, make it objectively less great than it initially appears.

That said, it's a wonderful album for those who want a modern Celtic album and those who enjoyed the song "The Mummer's Dance," which is on this album, are bound to be satisfied with this album. And it sounds good. If one is a passive listener to music, then The Book Of Secrets might well appear as a magnum opus for McKennitt. But careful listeners and anyone who actually wants to listen to lyrics to the songs they are hearing will likely be less overwhelmed as we struggle to listen to lyrics that are good, but not exceptional.

With only eight tracks, The Book Of Secrets is filled with only 53:17 minutes of Loreena McKennitt's music. Moreover, it is hard not to argue that McKennitt is creative, she inarguably is. McKennitt wrote the music for all of the songs and the lyrics to four of the five other songs that actually have lyrics. For the fifth, McKennitt set most of Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman" to her new Celtic music and it works. McKennitt sings all five songs that have lines to be sung and sings such inarticulate things as the "la la la"s on "Prologue."

As well, McKennitt is instrumentally gifted. She plays at least one instrument on each and every track. She plays keyboards on all of the songs, as well as piano, harp, Kanoun, and accordion. Moreover, her arrangements are musically rich, so it is hard to say she does not have an way of filling her songs up with a real sense of sound and movement. She has a wonderful ear for creating songs that have a musical depth to them. The Book Of Secrets is produced by Loreena McKennitt, so this is her musical vision as well.

The overall sound is a popular mix of beats and classic instruments. McKennitt produces a new Celtic sound, blending classic instruments like the harp and the accordion with modern instruments like the electric guitar and synthesizer to create a pop-Celt sound. If the ancient Celts were brought into our time to make popular music, this is exactly what they might produce. And for those who have been stuck in the banalities of pop-rock music - especially the last few years as it crosses over into pop-hip hop music - albums like The Book Of Secrets offer a real alternative. The instrumentals are interesting and diverse and the high, feminine voice of Loreena McKennitt is a beautiful and different one.

The problem that I have with McKennitt on this and some of her other early works is that the way she produces the albums makes it very difficult to understand what she is singing. She has a beautiful voice, but she seldom articulates her lines and even when she does, she often pits her lines against instrumentals that are occupying a similar range and pitch, which makes the two frequently indistinguishable from one another.

Take, for example, McKennitt's hit song "The Mummer's Dance." On that song, in the refrain, she takes to soaring up the scale into Mariah Carey and bat territory right as she gives the instruments a crescendo. Is it any wonder, one is unlikely to hear her poem "Who will go down to those shady groves / And summon the shadows there / And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms / In the springtime of the year / The songs of birds seem to fill the wood / That when the fiddler plays / All their voices can be heard / Long past their woodland days ("The Mummer's Dance") without consulting the liner notes for the lyrics?

And McKennitt is an able poet. "The Highwayman" is a great poem and including it on The Book Of Secrets leaves McKennitt with some big shoes to fill. Still, she manages to rise to the occasion by creating poems that have a similar sense of cadence and depth. McKennitt is able to create a truly classical sound with her lines like "Take me with you on this journey / Where the boundaries of time are now tossed / In cathedrals of the forest / In the words of the tongues now lost / Find the answers, ask the questions / Find the roots of an ancient tree / Take me dancing, take me singing / I'll ride on 'til the moon meets the sea / Ride on through the night, ride on" ("Night Ride Across The Caucaus"). McKennitt is good and she can write, making it unfortunate that so few of the lyrics on The Book Of Secrets are hers (or rather that so few of the songs have lyrics). McKennitt has a great sense of imagery and listening to this album is to transform one's sense of time and place.

However, for those looking for something Celtic in the strictest sense, McKennitt's lines on The Book Of Secrets might leave one somewhat unsatisfied. Some of the songs have pretty obvious Christian undertones and, strictly speaking, the ancient Celts were not Christian. As a result, those looking for a truly Celtic experience might find some of the poetics do not match their sense of philosophy. For example, it is hard to argue the sense of Christian imagery and implication - versus the Celtic one - is not present in McKennitt's lines "I did not believe because I could not see / Though you came to me in the night / When the dawn seemed forever lost / You showed me your love in the light of the stars / Cast your eyes on the ocean / Cast your soul to the sea / When the dark night seems endless / Please remember me" ("Dante's Prayer"). And that's fine, so long as one is not looking for authentic Celtic.

Musically, though, Loreena McKennitt leaves a little to be desired on The Book Of Secrets. On this album, she is unfortunately stealing from herself. "Prologue" and "Night Ride Across The Caucasus" have many of the same chords and progressions. Similarly, the middle of that latter track has a lot of the same instrumentation used in the same way as McKennitt does with her popular "The Mummer's Dance." As a result, listening to The Book Of Secrets over and over again, the listener might find they are a little dulled by the sound.

The album is a good one, but it is not exceptional. The best song is "The Highwayman," the low point is the unmemorable "Marco Polo."

For other Loreena McKennitt albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Elemental
To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Parallel Dreams
A Midwinter Night’s Dream


6.5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the albums and singles I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Opening Short, Sweet And Creatively, Loreena McKennitt's Elemental Is Good.

The Good: Good vocals, Creative sound, Decent instrumental accompaniment
The Bad: Disturbingly short
The Basics: A good, but short and arguably typical, Celtic album, Elemental starts out Loreena McKennitt's career well!


It's always interesting to me to see who succeeds and who flops after a first album. After all, some recording companies do not give a second chance to the investments they make who fail to perform. Conversely, smaller companies seem content to build an audience and create a career for an artist independent of the cold numbers of album sales. Loreena McKennitt seems to be one of the latter artists. Listening to her debut, Elemental, it is clear that McKennitt appeals to a very specific niche, always has, always will and Quinlan Road - the small recording company which released her first few albums - was content to nurture her career long enough for her to gain a following that was respectable and warranted the attention of the bigger recording companies.

The thing is, Elemental sounds creative and fresh and it is easy to see how anyone looking for something different out of their musical experience would enjoy the Celtic music sound McKennitt starts with, but it is a very specific niche she is catering to. While later albums and her breakout single "The Mummer's Dance" contain infusions of pop-rock flavor, Elemental is stark, simple and very much a traditional Celtic music sound. Ultimately, it is easy to recommend - even to fans of Loreena McKennitt's music - but it is problematic in its short duration and it replays less well than some of McKennitt's other albums. But her potential is evident and anyone who likes Classical, vocal or Celtic music is liable to enjoy Elemental.

With only nine songs occupying only 36:27 on compact disc, Elemental is an excellent example of Loreena McKennitt's quality as a composer, if not a well-rounded musical artist. McKennitt adapted traditional (public domain) Celtic songs as well as putting music to two poems ("The Stolen Child" by William Butler Yeats and "Lullaby" by William Blake). McKennitt composed all of the musical compositions and she sings primary vocals on all of the songs. She played harp and piano on various tracks and was involved in the production of Elemental, so this is very much the album she intended to create.

For those who might not have heard much in the Celtic-folk genre, Elemental sounds most like fringe-mainstream artist Enya. Her music relies on untraditional (or, I suppose, literally traditional) instruments like the harp, dulcimer and lutes to create slow, sad-sounding ballads. Elemental is unified in its tone, which is entirely slow, sad and melodic. The dominant instrument is the harp and the songs tend to be most frequently accompanied by chimes for percussion.

McKennitt mixes the bland Celtic harp sound up occasionally. On "Lullaby," she opens with the sounds of thunder to lead into more musing instrumentals and her eerie vocals which establish a melody.

Vocally, McKennitt has a beautiful soprano voice, which she makes tremble beautifully. She sings her songs melodically and slowly and on Elemental, there are very few lines she does not sing with perfect clarity. Unlike later albums, McKennitt seems to want all of her lines heard (later on, she mumbles or produces the instrumental accompaniment to overwhelm the lines). McKennitt is seldom alone on Elemental. Songs like "Stolen Child" have McKennitt accompanied with other female voices to create a chorus of passionate wailings. On "Lullaby," Douglas Campbell performs the poem and his stark, deep reading of Blake's lines is a huge departure from the rest of the album, but it works beautifully!

Lyrically, Elemental is essentially a series of traditional English poems and songs set to new harp, bell and piano music. While McKennitt mixes in thunder and bird sounds ("She Moved Through The Fair"), she is presenting mood poems which tend to paint a picture of the medieval world more than anything else. As a result, she sings little musical storysongs like "Dear thoughts are in my mind / And my soul soars enchanted / As I hear the sweet lark sing / In the clear air of the day. / For a tender beaming smile / To my hope has been granted / And tomorrow she shall hear / All my fond heart would say" ("The Lark In The Clear Air"). The songs tend to have singsong rhyme schemes, but given that most were written over two hundred years ago, McKennitt's source material arguably created some of the traditional rhymes.

And, ultimately, more than anything else, it is the short duration of Elemental that makes it an average album. Truth be told, it is unlike most pop-rock albums and while it is very much what one expects from a vocal or Celtic album, arguably those expectations come from Loreena McKennitt herself! Anyone who likes classical music with poetic vocals will likely enjoy Elemental.

The best song is "Stolen Child." I was not wild about "Come By The Hills."

For other Loreena McKennitt albums, be sure to visit my reviews of:
To Drive The Cold Winter Away
Parallel Dreams
A Midwinter Night’s Dream

6/10

For other music reviews, check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the music I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Parallel Dreams Convinces Me: I'm Not A Fan Of Loreena McKennitt's Music!

The Good: Good vocals, Decent, fairly original sound
The Bad: SHORT, Replays poorly, fairly indistinct.
The Basics: Short, indistinct and ultimately average, Loreena McKennitt's album Parallel Dreams leaves me unimpressed after several listens.


One of my least favorite, but recurring, arguments I get into when discussing music with people tends to stem around the idea that if I find something I do not like, I find myself accused of not understanding it. Fans of any given musical artist, especially the ones who are creative (I recall fans of Bjork's works being especially vicious) seem to take up arms for their favored musical artist by insisting that those who do not like the works of the artist just don't "get it." The truth is, I've listened to almost all of Loreena McKennitt's albums, reviewed To Drive The Cold Winter Away (here!) and A Midwinter Night's Dream (here!), and I'm at the point where I'm ready to say, "I am not a fan." And it is most certainly not because I do not understand her music; I get it, I get what she's doing, but I'm not convinced it is in any way remarkable.

I come to this conclusion on the music of Loreena McKennitt as I conclude the ninth spinning (and begin the tenth) of McKennitt's album Parallel Dreams. It is on this album that I postulate a reasonable hypothesis on McKennitt's works as well. I suspect what happens with most listeners is that they hear Loreena McKennitt's natural vocals and celtic instrumentals and think, "This is unlike anything I've ever heard and that makes it cool!" And they are right; a decent musical collection ought to have one McKennitt album or one mix, but becoming a collector of her works is a study in redundancy, even though she has move through many phases, including recently getting into a more Middle Eastern sound. But most of her albums replay poorly and are shorter and just become musical white noise.

To wit, the only track I feel like actually discussing after so many listens is "Dickens' Dublin," largely because it is the only song that stands out, for better and for worse. "Dickens' Dublin" illustrates the creativity of Loreena McKennitt as a music maker and performer. Unfortunately, the song also stands as a decent example of how creativity does not guarantee success in every musical experiment. What works in the song is McKennitt's vocals, especially her haunting refrain of "Maybe I can find a place I can call my home / Maybe I can find a home I can call my own" ("Dickens' Dublin"). She sings a musical storysong which is eerie, sensual and deliciously murky. She is accompanied by simple pianos and backing vocals which give her an ethereal sound which is the perfect embodiment and personification of longing.

Unfortunately, between her singing, the piano quiets down and she samples a cockney kid who tells his story of living on the streets and its utterly amelodic and it kills the flow of the song. After the third time the kid's voice cuts in, I don't care about him or his story; I feel like I am being cheaply manipulated and it's not working. Good music can make me empathize with a musical protagonist without resorting to cheap tricks or techniques like that. Fortunately, it is the only song on the album that makes such a right turn into ridiculousness.

Unfortunately for Loreena McKennitt, it is the only song on the album which stands out. Played on a loop, the album becomes an auditory mash of sopranic wailing and quiet zither music which is so indistinct that it leaves one with little to talk about. McKennitt's vocals are beautiful, but I cannot tell you a single other lyric she sings, despite listening to the album so many times and actually listening for the lines (I know "Africa" is sung on one song). The album doesn't have a single. And while I'm a proponent of the album medium, I like albums that say something, evoke a mood or leave me thinking or feeling something. With Parallel Dreams, I have nothing.

With only eight songs clocking out just over forty-three minutes, Parallel Dreams is very much a typical Loreena McKennitt album in that it is a blend of the creative talents of Loreena McKennitt and traditional celtic songs. McKennitt five of the songs on her own, co-wrote "Moon Cradle" and includes two songs ("Annachie Gordon" and "Standing Stones") which have very old origins, but are arranged or set to music by McKennitt. McKennitt provides lead vocals on each and every track and she plays multiple instruments as well.

Unfortunately, her creative talents seem strained on Parallel Dreams as the album is comprised entirely of ballads. Universally slow and murky, this album lacks anything danceable or upbeat like "The Mummer's Dance," which made McKennitt's music known to a wider audience in the 1990s. As a result of being slow, using organs, pianos, zithers and very minimal percussion, the songs blend together as one long, slow ballad which lacks anything distinctive in the way of music, vocals or lyrics. Sadly, there is little else to say about this short, mediocre album.

The strongest and weakest link is "Dickens' Dublin."

For other, similar, musical artists, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
300 Days At Sea - Heather Nova
Wintersong - Sarah McLachlan
Many Great Companions - Dar Williams

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

A Classic Christmas Album Even A Grinch Can Enjoy: Loreena McKennitt's A Midwinter Night's Dream!

The Good: Great voice, Good mix of songs, Nice instrumentals, Generalized holiday spirit/feel
The Bad: Sounds a lot like all of McKennitt's other works, Could be longer.
The Basics: Finally presenting an album where she produces her vocals to the forefront, Loreena McKennitt impresses with her Christmas album A Midwinter Night's Dream!


For those who might not follow my reviews, Christmas albums often suffer at my hands. I am, to say the least, not a fan. There are virtually no new, decent, takes on old, classic Christmas songs by new artists these days. Instead, the Christmas album becomes an inexpensive way to release an album and guarantee performers a little extra holiday loot by cashing in on the season. It has been a long time since there has been a truly inspired holiday album that I have heard.

The artist who gets a free pass from that generalized criticism of holiday albums is Loreena McKennitt. McKennitt releases all types of classical-sounding albums and a Christmas album of hers is more in keeping with the style and tenor of her music than most musical artists who release Christmas albums. So when my mother brought home A Midwinter Night's Dream, I was not inherently biased against it and the more I have listened to it, the more I have come to appreciate it. For those looking for a good, classic-sounding Christmas album, this is a great way to go. For those looking for a more generic and universally friendly "holiday" album, this is fine . . . so long as one ignores almost all of the lyrics. McKennitt creates a pretty ideal Christmas album as opposed to a more p.c.-friendly "holiday" album, though her sound is likely to be appreciated by anyone.

With thirteen tracks, clocking out at a disappointingly anemic 54:19, A Midwinter Night's Dream represents a combination of traditional musical and lyrical frameworks and Loreena McKennitt's arrangement sensibilities. What I mean is that McKennitt wrote none of the lyrics and little of the score to the music on this album. Instead, she adapts the classical scores and lyrics to modern instruments and produces the album to be a decent mix of old and new. This is not to say that McKennitt is not presenting something artistic on this album. Quite the opposite, McKennitt provides lead vocals on all songs, plays an instrument on all tracks but one and produced the album. While she only plays the harp, keyboards, piano and accordion on this album, it is hard to say that she is not busy or artistic! This represents, despite the limitations imposed by the classic, established songs and lyrics, the musical vision of Loreena McKennitt.

In fact, if there is any real strong drawback to A Midwinter Night's Dream as far as artistic vision it is in that this is very clearly McKennitt's vision. This album sounds remarkably like every other album of McKennitt's. More than just presenting the same soprano vocals against deep bass chords and mixing harps and electric guitars, this means that a number of the songs that McKennitt arranged on this album sound like songs from her other albums. In fact, even those who only know McKennitt from her hit "The Mummer's Dance" will find "Noel Nouvelet!" instrumentally familiar because of that.

For those unfamiliar with the works of Loreena McKennitt, this is a wonderful and safe way to get into the artist as many of the songs on this album are straightforward classic Christmas songs that are recognizable to anyone. Classics like "Good King Wenceslas," "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and "Emmanuel" are along side less familiar (to many) songs like "The Holly & The Ivy" and "Gloucestershire Wassail." As well, McKennitt provides three instrumental tracks with "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle," "Brenton Carol," and "In The Bleak Midwinter."

As mentioned, the arrangements are distinctly Loreena McKennitt. Like most of her albums, most of the songs are slow, have a melancholy affect to them - especially in the vocals - and mix classical instruments like the mandolin and harp with modern instruments like the electric guitar to provide a new medieval chic. If one were to imagine Christmas at a Renaissance Festival, this album would most assuredly be the soundtrack to it. McKennitt is well-versed in the classics and this is a soft, non-intrusive Christmas album that is - at the same time - enjoyable to listen to.

Take, for example, McKennitt's version of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Without changing any of the traditional lyrics to this son, McKennitt makes the song sound new again. This is the only track she does not play an instrument in, but her vocals act as an instrument. Her soprano voice rings out in countermelody to the deep percussion. This track has an eclectic mix of instruments that creates a brooding, almost dangerous, sound with its use of violins, guitars, guitar synthesizer, acoustic bass, cello, tabla, shawm and multiple forms of percussion. McKennitt takes a pretty classic European Christmas song and makes it sound Middle Eastern or Indian!

This mix of classic and contemporary sounds has its drawbacks. "Snow" sounds like virtually any Celine Dion track (in fact, it sounds a lot in its opening orchestration like "My Heart Will Go On") and the short instrumentals often blend with the tracks next to them. After eight listens to this album, I still could not tell you what the final track sounds like as it basically loops perfectly for "Emmanuel" to "The Holly & The Ivy."

A Midwinter Night's Dream is soft and almost universally slow. Even songs like "Good King Wenceslas" are more subdued than boisterous under McKennitt's musical attentions. This is a very mellow album and it is easy to listen to it and want to do nothing more than curl up in front of a fire and listen to McKennitt's sweet, sensual voice traverse the scales. As well, it is a good album of Christmas songs to have on during a gathering; it is both non-intrusive and an intriguing musical conversation piece for those who need one.

The best song is McKennitt's rich take on "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," the low point (and it is not much of one) is the fairly forgettable "Gloucestershire Wassail."

For other Christmas albums, please check out my reviews of:
To Drive The Cold Winter Away - Loreena McKennitt
Joy: A Holiday Celebration - Jewel
These Are Special Times – Celine Dion
A New Thought For Christmas – Melissa Etheridge

8/10

For other album and singles reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

Indistinct McKennitt - To Drive The Cold Winter Away

The Good: Nice voice, Atypical "sound."
The Bad: Tracks are indistinct, Album is short, The lyrics are unimpressive
The Basics: Without any songs that genuinely stand out, To Drive The Cold Winter Away is a short Christmas album with unrecognizable songs that feels much longer than it is.


Some years ago, I was eager to learn about the acclaimed musical artist Kate Bush. I found her double album Aerial and found it to be pointless, uninspired and just awful. When I was evaluating that outing, I made a comparison between Bush and Loreena McKennitt, whose works I have generally enjoyed. I decided it was time to revisit some of McKennitt's works and the first one I picked up was To Drive The Cold Winter Away. Sadly for my opinion of the works of Loreena McKennitt, this is suffering as one of her least worthwhile works. On my fifth listen through the album, I realized not one of the songs had distinguished itself.

I have a real thing against albums where the result is essentially auditory sludge. I enjoy cohesive albums that create a body of work that puts me - or any listener - on a journey. While songs may flow from one to another with grace and a sense of the big picture of an album (I think track order can be incredibly important to a musical endeavor), I still want to feel like I have listened to something, especially after multiple listens. On To Drive The Cold Winter Away, I did not get that sense and I felt cheated. I can barely write, after seven listens now, what exactly I heard in To Drive The Cold Winter Away.

With ten tracks clocking in at 45:40 minutes, To Drive The Cold Winter Away is largely a collection of songs featuring Loreena McKennitt as performer, as opposed to artist. Seven of the tracks are traditional ballads (English, Irish and Scottish), two of the tracks are written by McKennitt and one has her music accompanying lyrics by Archibald Lampman. McKennitt is showcased as a vocal performer, rather than an artist who is creating her own material and sharing her vision with the world.

What may one expect of To Drive The Cold Winter Away? Let's start with voice. Presented here as a vocal artist, Loreena McKennitt is performing songs that sound like old ballads, like carols and hymns, though most of them are more ambiguous than Christian. McKennitt has a beautiful soprano voice that easily set the standard for the likes of the more current performers like Hayley Westenra. The problem for McKennitt here on this album is that her presentations are beautiful in pitch and melody, and the way she harmonizes with the harps and violins, but they vary very little.

So, with her opening track of "In Praise of Christmas," McKennitt easily establishes that she has a gorgeous soprano voice. She establishes that she can hold notes for a period of time that makes her vocals very fluid and luxurious in an auditory sense. But then comes "The Seasons" and she delivers essentially the same performance, then "The King" which is the same again and so on and so on. Diluted with two instrumental performances - "Banquet Hall" and "The Stockford Carol" both of which were written by McKennitt - the album ultimately comes across as an object lesson in how to present one very obvious style in one very consistent manner.

This brings us to the actual music. The instruments on To Drive The Cold Winter Away are harps, accordions, viols, tambourines, finger cymbals, and a lone tin whistle. The instrumentation is unvaried throughout the album. All of the songs are slow, sad sounding and . . . well, dull. For a woman who made the Celtic sound popular with "The Mummer's Dance," this album is a solidly orthodox, blase album that does not challenge the listener or any conventions.

That's not to say that an album must do that; when it is not, it has to provide a solid listening experience that showcases a range, lyrically, musically or vocally that captures something. Instead, this is a mostly narcoleptic album that is not musically or vocally impressive.

As for the lyrics, the way the recording is presented makes them rather difficult to decipher at times. The vocals were mostly recorded in cavernous churches, which captured just enough of an echo to throw the ethereal pitches McKennitt emits back at her. The result is an auditory experience where any number of lines of verse are lost to the acoustics. In short, the album makes it just clear enough to the listener that McKennitt is singing, but makes it hard to hear WHAT she is saying.

Some of the lines are decipherable, though no single song stands out for the lyrics. Most of them are traditional songs and they rely on imagery that would have been nice to hear (I ended up reading most of the lines in the liner notes just to decipher what she is singing). A number of the songs use very predictable rhymes, like gun/fun, dry/by and season/reason in "The Seasons."

As well, the latter half of the album presents a number of distinctly Christian songs with "Balulalow," "Let Us The Infant Greet," and "The Wexford Carol." While normally, I might comment on lines like "Let all that are to mirth inclines / Consider well and bear in mind / What our good God for us has done / In sending his beloved Son / For to redeem our souls from thrall / Christ is the savior of us all . . ." ("Let All That Are To Mirth Inclined"), it's easy to let it slide on McKennitt's album as most of the lines with strong Christian imagery are virtually obscured by the acoustics . . .

. . . And because, after seven listens and one read through the liner notes, this is ultimately presented with the intent to be a Christmas album. Damn you, Loreena McKennitt, duping me into listening to Christmas carols on repeat! :) Okay, it's hard to ultimately take this album seriously on a number of levels because everything is so unfamiliar and there is nothing superlative that instead of being impressed, shocked or anything else, the listener (in this case one who just wanted to hear some decent Celtic music) is simply disappointed.

Who might like this album? Well, if you want a traditional Christmas album without any songs you're likely to recognize and that is more likely to get you to fall asleep in your egg nog than celebrate the birth of anyone, To Drive The Cold Winter Away might just be for you. If you're looking for something to keep you awake while driving or entertain or enlighten you, this album is not it. There are better albums by McKennitt and in general.

The best track is the unpretentious instrumental "Banquet Hall," the low point was "Balulalow."

For other Christmas albums, please check out my reviews of:
Joy: A Holiday Celebration - Jewel
These Are Special Times – Celine Dion
A New Thought For Christmas – Melissa Etheridge

3/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |