Given a new lease of life through the independent labels Rusted Rail and Slow Loris, the re-release of The Driftwood Manor's second album The Same Figure Leaving may well garner the attention it richly deserves. Nine songs that centre mainly on sharp acoustic guitar and the low vocals of Eddie Keenan, the usual tags of 'warm', 'brooding' and 'soulful' are thrown to the verges here. It's a folk album with a difference, a dark and disconcerting edge that's about as refreshing as a bony finger running down a spine in a gloomy graveyard on All Hallow's Eve.
'A Coat Against The Winter' could have been named 'An Iron Helmet Against Beauty' or 'A Match Against A Glacier'; there's definitely a sense of intimidation, a fear of how powerless we stand against nature's mighty power. This I gather by the developing beauty of 'A Coat Against The Winter', which reflects the changing environment as cold weather draws in but the dominant scrape of guitar strings seems to convey the peril that can befall us in this season, leaving even the healthiest body as bare and frozen as a deciduous tree.
Having reviewed folk albums more than any other genre this year, the real distinction of The Driftwood Manor's offering becomes clear in 'You Have Mapped The Pathways' and 'Each Day Has Bettered Me None' with weird electronic whirrs which set this far above the typical guitar-and-strings arrangements of 'nice', standard folky fare. Even where the guitar and violin do lead, as with 'Words Caught In Ruins', Keenan's vocal is eerily suppressed.
For a rather simple song, 'On A Corner In Athlone' is surprisingly urgent. Eddie Keenan's voice can be heard beautifully here, and as the midpoint of the album, it seems the softest and most tender moment when the strange darkness of the other songs flickers out. Only temporarily however for 'That Lasting Final Hurt' follows with a rapid pace set to mandolin with a lovely female vocal with the return to the ghostly, dispossed vocals. This song, along with the next track 'Blackbirds Are Screaming' and an as-yet undisclosed other, are part of a triptych of videos prouced by Tiny Epics which all reflect the earlier sentiment of natural fear.
Drawing a deep, final furrow under track nine 'The Same Figure (Leaving)' is the most fulfilling number which does justice to the record as whole, marking itself out as worthy of the esteem that goes with being the album's title track. Along with guitar, violin, brass and electronics there are other instrumental textures in the album that include banjo, double bass and mandolin and it is here that all the eerie, lovely instances have segued into one cohesive whole, Eddie Keenan's voice breaking past the willowy straps and bonds of the fine production to resonate with lasting clarity.
Although three of the songs are over four minutes long, the album just about breaks the half-hour mark. Finally, with the denouement, the shock that was always threateningly close while listening manifests: a scary sadness that this album is over. Repeatedly replayable, with 'The Same Figure (Leaving)' The Driftwood Manor have made what is highly likely to be the finest record to find its way out of the thickets of Irish folk this year.
