Hothouse Flowers
Into Your Heart

This is an excellently crafted album by mature artists who, probably because they are beyond chart ambitions and dreams of glory, have assembled a collection of songs of great class, elevated taste, and refined flavors.
When quality is high, and at the same time there is a disinterest in quantity (the number of copies sold), the special effects, pyrotechnics, and coups de théâtre are abandoned. There is no exaggeration in any direction, and one does not become either too simplistic or overly sophisticated. In short, one limits oneself and adheres to more linear logic.
"Into Your Heart" is a guitar-driven pop album tinged with soul, blues, gospel, and only lightly spiced with Irish influences. No loud rock and pop, no connection to its predecessor "Born" therefore; no mega-spirituals and choruses like in the early records. No epic tones or Celtic structures, no fanatic religious sermons or wooden church pastorals in Tennessee. No cotton grower's songs with a ball and chain and no Guinness.
Tasting this album, you will find that the spiritual is subdued, refined (the excellent opener “Your Love Goes On”), that the pop-blues is sophisticated yet straightforward; that the choruses are proper and no longer shattering the decorated windows of cathedrals; that the big riffs have become punctual and calibrated arpeggios; that the more guitar-driven pieces are not relentless and tireless, but lighthearted and soft.
One does not gorge; one savors, enjoys, tastes. One does not get drunk, but sips, dines.
The ballads are subtle, "Peace Tonight" is in a singular falsetto, "Feel Like Living" is almost entirely on the piano. “Alright” is sung entirely in chorus from the first to the last syllable; the singing in “Out Of Nowhere” is very ancient but is only pop blues.
Liam Ó Maonlaí is an even more extraordinary performer, increasingly less pop-rock and more blues on one side and ethnic on the other, producing interpretations and especially timbres never heard before, sometimes sounding like a woman, and without even using much falsetto.
The result, although excellent, is not the masterpiece that might appear from my words: taken all at once, consumed in a few bites, “Into Your Heart” risks appearing a bit monotonous and undoubtedly lacking in courage. To those used to the explosive spiritual rock of "People" and "Home," or the excellent post-Celtic-rock of "Born," these 2004 Hothouse Flowers might seem flavorless... Whatever qualitative result they are able to achieve with this delicate approach, Liam and company are truly a great band when they give you something to feed your soul, when they want to make you indulge in true binges of hope, when Ó Maonlaí has his sacred logorrhea. Those accustomed to their feasts and typically ultra-seasoned dishes will believe in a levelling down and struggle to find the Hothouse Flowers in their essence.
Here's what's missing in “Into Your Heart”: grandiosity, vibrant tones, a desire to exaggerate, grandeur, delirium, the almost complete lack of a sense of measure.
In a single word, fervor.