Fionn Regan - The Meeting of the Waters

The Guardian 80

(Tsuneni Ai/Abbey)

Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan first blazed to public attention with 2006’s The End of History, earning comparisons to Bob Dylan and Nick Drake, and a Mercury nomination before record company disputes halted his momentum. His first album for five years is still a folk record at heart, but one swathed in electronic orchestrations. Euphoria and Cormorant Bird are closest in sound to his early work: gently beguiling tunes and dizzying, literary imagery: “You pulled a rainbow from my skull and you said, ‘Look at that.’” Elsewhere, things are more experimental: Cape of Diamonds and Book of the Moon bring rockier guitars and stadium-ready “oh oh ohh”s, and Babushka–Yai Ya depicts a pub brawl set to a Kate Bush soundtrack. The exquisite Up into the Rafters finds Regan on a heroic mission to sing like the Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, while curveball closer Tsuneni Al blends wind chimes and echoes into 12 minutes of becalmed, ambient beauty.