It's out!!

[chelidon]

I am downloading the new Loreena McKennitt album from the iTunes Music Store as I write. Woo Hoo!

Comments

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

Let me know how it is. Very curious.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I'm listening to it in the background while entertaining houseguests, so not listening intently, but so far...hmm, none of the songs really grabs me, kinda newagey. Her voice is still stellar, but all of the bits of arrangements I've heard sound like bits of her other songs. Not a bad thing, but...well, kinda bland, I hate to say. I'm hoping it'll grow on me when I have a chance to listen more closely.

[elnigma.livejournal.com]

Let me know if it lights up for you, if it grows on you. Your description puts me in mind of another situation where I had been really eager to hear someone who hadn't put anything out in a long time but then wasn't too thrilled. I didn't care for Kate Bush's last album, to me she sounded like a new age parody of her old self.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

A longer review I just wrote up:

I do like it well enough, it's perfectly nice, and she still has an exquisite voice, but it's just...hmm, missing much of the hunger and fire of the past, the depth of fierce passion that made her so unique and irresistibly compelling. A number of the tracks I'd call "unremarkable," which is so different from earlier albums, where every song grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go ;> I guess I have very high expectations for some people, based on their past performance and effect on me, and she's one, for sure. I have to wonder if the tragedy, pain and grief of losing her dear love, having her life shattered and turned to dust around her, caused her to close off somewhat to the intensity, honesty, and openness that fed her earlier work. Just a guess, but I can easily see how it could be so. When life is painful, some people turn to the solace of mysticism, to find peace with, and often to some level disengage from, the world that caused such pain. LM was always mystic, but her explorations in this album seem much more diffuse, more vague, less clearly focused on the world of man, than her earlier work. Of course she's ten years older, too, and that can make a difference.

And part of it, on a more down-to-earth level is that so many of the songs are arranged very, very much like earlier pieces of hers. Never-Ending Road (Amhran Duit), for instance, sounds very similar in places to The Two Trees, and even uses some of the same sound effects from earlier songs, like All Souls Night and The Old Ways.

I think my favorite so far is "Penelope's Song" -- even though similar to others of hers (Dante's Prayer, for instance), it has a purity that comes through, and she lets her voice soar a bit. Yum!

[idragosani.livejournal.com]

Mine showed up via UPS this afternoon. Think I will light some incense and spend a quiet evening with humanpacifier listening to it... might have some scotch, too :-)

[ravenedgewalker.livejournal.com]

yay - I'm tempted - so let me know if it's worth it....

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

*sigh* It's okay, not great. I wrote up a more detailed review earlier in this thread, but the bottom line is that almost none of the songs really stood out in my mind. YMMV, of course, but I have to admit, I'm a bit disappointed.