Hothouse Flowers
Songs from the Rain

Seventy percent black, thirty percent white. This is the mixture that creates the average winter grayness of Irish skies. And in 1993, the Hothouse Flowers draw upon this combination. Seventy percent soul, blues, gospel, and spiritual, as well as semi-(almost-)religious fervor of frenzied Alabama pastors. The remaining thirty percent is country rock, Irish folk, epic and/or Celtic pop-rock, as well as semi-(almost-)religious fervor of "street manic preachers."

In the big single, the opener "This Is It (Your Soul)", old soul and country rock merge, in "One Tongue" it's halfway between semi-acoustic and sermon. In the almost title track "An Emotional Time," the vocalist is a cross between Chris Isaak, Morten Harket, and Father Ralph. "Be Good" is guitar-driven soul with Celtic flute and gospel in the choruses. Should I continue?

"Good For You" is a piece for an Irish Meatloaf. "Your Nature" is the beauty of their gray subzero mornings; "Gipsy Fair" is soul-pop in the same vein as the closing "Stand Beside Me." In between, two tracks that from pure epic episodes (but not rock) become prayers, spirituals, not only because of the pathos but also, and indeed especially, because of the sound. "Isn't It Amazing" and "Thing Of Beauty" are their titles, while "Spirit Of The Land" also benefits from an epic start to then become a good metropolitan blues.

Only thirty percent of "Songs From The Rain" can therefore, in terms of sound and inclinations, be traced back to their mentors and producers U2, who discovered them when Liam Ó Maonlaí and company were still buskers on the streets of Dublin. Only this minor part has the same intentions, the same aspirations, the identical clichés. The pale white of the Nordic man here only serves to fade the glossy black, creating a leaden gray that is identical to the color of Irish clouds in winter, identical to the "sky over Dublin" when it’s about to rain its songs...

An album of catchy tunes and easy appeal, in the long run perhaps a bit monotonous in its yet interesting and continuous intertwining of white and black, in search of intelligent pop. After all, if it's the rain that brings down these songs, one certainly can't complain about it: Dubliners have likely already dedicated all possible curses to that endless water chant, and what remains for them is the patience to endure, not to pay it any mind. It's up to folks like us the task, as well as the pleasure, of enjoying it, of splashing in it, of dancing to its music, of singing its refrains.

Gray is beautiful.