Aoife Nessa Frances
Protector

I confess I've given this album more time to mesmerize me than I've granted to others. Time granted more to its author than to the album itself. Aoife McCarthy from Dublin, with her name that smells so much of Ireland, credited as a folk-pop singer. The first listen to the album, early in the morning and in the shower, is disorienting: nothing like what I expected or had read about her. By the third track, I turn it off, get dressed, and leave the house. Yet it can't just be like this, simply like this. Musically, there can't be something Irish that doesn't deserve a second chance. It's Ireland, for crying out loud, not Liechtenstein, with all due respect to Liechtenstein and their banking system. "Protector" is a sophisticated album, where Ireland slips between the lines, if you’re not able to grasp it. It's a journey of Aoife along the western coast, an immersion into the island's wildest nature. "Way to say goodbye" is a good track with a catchy chorus, an encounter with Aoife's calm voice, almost a whisper, splendid on the lower notes. "Emptiness follows" is delicately structured on a bossa nova rhythm and unfolds on crystalline arpeggios. "Only child" is unexpectedly simple in its chord progression, with Aoife’s voice in the foreground, yet the atmosphere is extremely evocative, with its crescendo of percussion. The finale is once again characterized by spontaneous arpeggios over a background of strings and winds, which mentally take you to the waves of the Atlantic crashing against the high western cliffs, amid the screech of seabirds. "Chariot" is again delightfully catchy, with a progressive vein and reminds me here and there of that vague blend of America and Ireland that animates U2's "Running to Stand Still". Before closing with the atmospheres of "Day out of time", there's still room for "Soft Lines" which, if properly rearranged, would sound great even as a rock track.
In short, I've listened to the album three times, happy not to have given up. A bit like with paintings, to understand some works, you need to know a bit more about the life of their authors...