Thran 2017
Takeaway
Irish troubadour looks back with a smile to light a route into the future.
EPs hold a special charm for this artist, that’s why Eamon Friel chose an extended format for the single that’s a collection of snapshots from his past, both thematically and temporally, with pieces old and new creating a new context for the singer-songwriter to reassess here and now. There’s intense attention to detail in Eamon’s songs, so hypnotic in a previously released “Across” whose accordion-stricken ripples shape a sense of perpetual motion, as the stones Friel is skimming become stories.
Going down memory lane on a delicate title track, where piano and acoustic guitar unfold a dewy-eyed panorama, he has turned nostalgia into an arresting, if static in a recipe-reading way, tale that switches to a cosmic, almost orchestral adventure along the way. Yet while “All The Lost Things” – the second dusted-off deep cut on display – delivers a funereal dirge for the electric years, a folk facade of “James Joseph Alphonsus” finds fun in a slightly sad context.
That’s a secret of a special takeaway: the taste of meal may vanish, while the circumstances of its order can stay with you forever, just like this EP.
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