Lisa Hannigan - 'Sea Sew' (Hoop) Released 27/04/09

The forthcoming single, 'Lille', avoids any pitfalls by producing a felicitous, timeless and tender ditty of a love-song from the war-front. 'Pistachio' succeeds in it's sentiments to produce a sense of solitude where a gay piano and muted trumpet conspire to produce a lullaby, Hannigan singing "...I know you're weighed down, and fed up, with your heavy, boots, laced with melancholy, notions all your own..." and sighing like Mari Boine. 'Venn Diagram', meanwhile, is penned like a note to a dreaming lover which starts softly, softly, finding room for Hannigan to become expressive like she's tiptoeing through the daisies - "...school bell ring messing up the play, ha ha ha har...".

The fine 'Sea Song' is a beguiling work of baroque folk not unlike an Irish Calexico with Hannigan singing "...there's one man so bright...he's like no sleep on the weekend...", and baroque folk with a Viennese violin is the flavour of 'Keep It All', albeit with a Psapp-like quirkiness, while the mighty 'Courting Blues' (written by Bert Jansch) finds Hannigan singing in impressionistic tones where her measured vocals are stretched over violin and piano drapery.

On 'Teeth' Hannigan serves the finest curveball on the album. A sense of oceanic tumult powers the emotions Hannigan is grappling with - it's the kind of song that would have been the a grand duet with Damien Rice, the band striking up for a cathartic showdown as Hannigan sings "...I'd my teeth bared for battle, till love lost made me, it made me dull, it made me dullllllllaarrruuulll...". In her own words, Hannigan writes how she's made an album both warm and creaky, sparse and full, and the contrasts ring true. On 'Sea Sew', however, Hannigan has stepped out of Rice's shadow and emerged an artist in her own right and a songwriter finding her own voice.